Alfred de Musset was a French dramatist, poet and novelist. He was born in Paris on 11December 1810 into a family of the nobility and was a bright child, excelling at school. In a letter dated 23 September 1827, Alfred told his classmate Paul Foucher, “je ne voudrais pas écrire ou je voudrais être Shakespeare ou Schiller” (“I don’t want to write, unless I can be Shakespeare or Schiller”) (Lefebvre, 1970, 8). He came close to realizing this ambition: his play Lorenzaccio is widely considered to be the French equivalent of one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces.
In his twenties Musset joined a group of young Romantic writers in Paris, known as the “Cénacle”, associated with the review La Muse franç…
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Citation: McRobert, Sandra. "Alfred de Musset". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 May 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3274, accessed 21 November 2024.]
