Delavigne, Casimir (1793-1843). French poet and dramatist, famous in his day. His sequence of poems Les Messéniennes (1816-18) combines a hymn to national glories, praise of liberty, a lament on the allied occupation of France, and a fervent appeal to national unity. It was triumphantly received, as were his tragedies, notably Les Vêpres siciliennes (1819), a chauvinistic treatment of the French occupation of Sicily, Le Paria (1821), and Marino Faliero (1829), a defence of liberalism among the corruptions of Venice. These succeeded through combining political liberalism with cautious experiment on the language and forms of traditional tragedy.

— S. Beynon John

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.