Short answers, pulled from the story.
Cromwell is a play written by Victor Hugo in 1827 that dramatizes the internal conflicts of Oliver Cromwell when he is offered the crown of England. At 6,920 verses it is one of the longest plays in French literary history.
The play was not staged until 1956 because of its enormous length of 6,920 verses and the logistical difficulty of casting its very large number of characters. No theatre company took on the challenge for nearly a hundred and thirty years after Hugo wrote it.
The preface to Hugo's Cromwell is now considered the manifesto of the Romantic movement in French literature. Hugo used it to argue against the classical tradition championed by Racine, Corneille, and the French Academy, proposing instead a drama modeled on Shakespeare.
Hugo's Romanticist literary circle rejected Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille, both of whom were backed by the French Academy, and chose Shakespeare as their model dramatist instead.
Cromwell received its first theatrical performance in 1956, more than a hundred and twenty years after Hugo wrote it in 1827.
Cromwell's preface is regarded as the founding manifesto of French Romanticism. Hugo wrote it as part of a literary circle that defined itself as Romanticist, aligned with Shakespeare over the classical French tradition, and opposed the authority of the French Academy.