Cyrano de Bergerac by Rostand (French, 1897)
Comic play about a hot-tempered solider whose enormous nose keeps him from succeeding with the ladies until one, Roxanne, is able to see the beauty within him.
posted by Davis at
9:46 PM
Monday, October 24, 2005
Comic play about a hot-tempered solider whose enormous nose keeps him from succeeding with the ladies until one, Roxanne, is able to see the beauty within him.
1 Comments:
Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” is a play written in the 19th century, set in 17th century France. There are many themes, but a couple of the most important are inner vs. outer beauty and self-esteem. The character of Cyrano, and several other characters are based on real people, and several occurrences in the play are based on the real life of Cyrano de Bergerac, but the real Cyrano who lived in the 17th century is not really the same person as the one depicted in Rostand’s play.
Cyrano is an over-the-top Renaissance man- a poet, a swordfighter, a soldier, an actor, and even a playwright. He is the owner, however, of a very large nose that gets in the way of adding “lover” to his list of occupations. He is in love with his cousin, who is very beautiful, but he does not have the guts to tell her that he loves her. His cousin, Roxane, in turn, loves Christian, a cadet in the same regiment as Cyrano. Roxane is very intelligent and expects Christian to be witty. Christian is not at all a man of words and relies on Cyrano to write love letters to Roxane for him.
Eventually, the two are sent into battle, and Cyrano continues the love letters to Roxane under Christian’s name. As the plot unfolds, it is discovered that Roxane does not love the real Christian, but rather his letters- ultimately she loves Cyrano, but the rest of the play deals with what Cyrano chooses to do with his secret love for Roxane, especially after Christian is struck by tragedy.
“Cyrano de Bergerac” is hard to follow because everything is dialogue and one has to imagine what is going on. Sometimes the language is difficult to follow because of the time period it is written in, but the humor is sharp and witty in many sections if the reader is keen enough to pick up on it. If you want a funny, sharp, interesting read that doesn’t take a standard view on romance “Cyrano de Bergerac” is worth reading.
This project takes a lot of work- don’t put it off until the last minute. I spent two weekends, virtually all weekend, getting everything together. Get on top of it before it’s too late. Go. Do it now.
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chrism, at 5:02 PM
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