Ready Reference Treatise: Cyrano de Bergerac

By Raja Sharma

“Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmond Rostand was written in 1897. The play is a fictionalized adaptation of the life of a real Cyrano de Bergerac.

It is a verse drama written in rhyming couplets. Each line has twelve syllables. The verse form is very similar to the Alexandrine formant, but the lines often have a lack of caesura.

It is obvious that the playwright had done a very meticulous research, even down to the names of the members of Academie Francaise.

Ready Reference Treatise: Cyrano de Bergerac
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: May 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311678027

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

Book preview

Ready Reference Treatise: Cyrano de Bergerac

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: Cyrano de Bergerac

Raja Sharma

Copyright@ 2015 Raja Sharma

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

Chapter One: Introduction

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand was written in 1897. The play is a fictionalized adaptation of the life of a real Cyrano de Bergerac.

It is a verse play written in rhyming couplets. Each line has twelve syllables. The verse form is very similar to the Alexandrine formant, but the lines often have a lack of caesura.

It is obvious that the playwright had done a very meticulous research, even down to the names of the members of Academie Francaise.

The play has been translated into several languages and performed many times around the world in several countries. The word panache is the gift of this play to the English language vocabulary.

Cyrano, the title character, is famous for his panache. At the end of the play, he says ‘My panache’ just before he breathes his last.

Although there are several English translations of the play, the two most popular and famous English translations had been done by Brain Hooker and Anthony Burgess.

Cyrano de Bergerac was first performed on 28th of December, 1897. It was an instant hit.

Both the audiences and the reviewers admired and cheered for a full hour after the fall of the curtain at the end of the play. It was a remarkable achievement for the playwright.

The play’s protagonist, Cyrano, was highly admired by the audiences. The romanticism has been expressed throughout the play.

It was easy for the audience to understand the play’s historical context because the play was set in the dramatic days of the 1640s when Louis XIII ruled over France.

The King’s highly manipulative and brilliant Cardinal Richelieu had led the country into the Thirty Years’ War very successfully.

The play presents the battle, the Siege of Arras, in the last scene. The real Cyrano is said to have taken part in that battle.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The protagonist of the play, Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac is a nobleman. He is a cadet soldier in the French Army. Cyrano is a very strong-willed person although he is brash.

He is a man with several talents. He is a wonderful duelist as well as a gifted and joyful poet. He is also a very good musician.

Although he has several virtues, he is also known for is extremely large nose. Because of that large nose, he often doubts himself.

Cyrano love his distant cousin, Roxane, but his doubt about himself prevents him from expressing his love. Roxane is a very beautiful and intellectual heiress. Cyrano believe that since he is ugly, he can’t be loved even by an ugly woman.

Act One

The first act opens in 1640, in Paris, in the theatre of the Hotel Burgundy. The audiences gradually begin to fill the theatre. They are from a cross-section of Parisian society, right from pickpockets to nobility.

A handsome new cadet named Christian de Neuvillette also arrives with Lignière, who is a drunken. Christian hopes that Lignière will identify the young woman with whom he has fallen in love.

Ligniere recognizes the woman. She