a French poet and early leader of French Romanticism. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare. Unlike many of the French Romantics, Vigny was an army officer with conservative and consistently royalist views. Though he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1822 and to captain the following year, the military profession in time of peace bored him. After taking several leaves of absence he abandoned military life in 1827, having already published his first poem Le Bal in 1820 and an ambitious narrative poem Éloa in 1824 on the popular romantic theme of the redemption of Satan.
