Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond
Rostand
A Classic Well Worth Reading
Rostands masterpiece-and the ultimate triumph of the great French
romantic tradition-is the magnificent hero-for-all-seasons, Cyrano de
Bergerac.
Personal Review: Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Cyrano de Bergerac (Bantam Classics reissue)
(Unlike most of the 47 previous reviews, this one is based on the
splendid, classic translation by Brian Hooker. I want to focus on what the
play's three main characters most desire, and what they obtain. People
who wish to read the play, knowing nothing about the plot, should skip this
review.)
The complete title of Edmond Rostand's play is CYRANO DE
BERGERAC, AN HEROIC COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS. Heroic it certainly is!

Cyrano dominates the action like a 17th-Century superman. In the First
Act, set in a theatre, he stops the performance of a play, ousting its star
actor. He then improvises a stunning performance of his own, doubtless
more dramatic, intelligent, and entertaining than the drama he replaced.
In the Second Act, having just won a battle, singlehandedly, against 100
men, he promises Roxane, the woman he loves, to protect Christian, the
man she loves, from his fellow soldiers. He then persuades this handsome
but inarticulate man, who also loves Roxane, to borrow Cyrano's mind and
soul for wooing her.
In the Third Act, Cyrano wins Roxane for Christian, coaching and then
substituting for him under Roxane's balcony. Cyrano then helps to trick a
priest into marrying the lovers, then mesmerizes a Count who would have
prevented the marriage, by describing the seven methods he once
invented for travelling to the moon.
In the Fourth Act, he quickens the morale of starving, besieged fellow-
soldiers, while writing love letters, twice a day, to Christian's wife in
Christian's name. These letters are so powerful that she braves the
Spanish army's blockade to join their supposed author. In the Fifth Act,
things are rather different, of which more later.
But - a comedy? There are lots of funny lines and situations, but aren't
comedies supposed to end happily? Here, by the end of the play,
Christian and Cyrano have been killed, and Roxane has suffered for 15
years a kind of suspended animation. Thus, many Amazon reviewers
react to the play with tears as well as laughter. They find tragic not only
the deaths, but the heart-breaking distance between what the main
characters sought, and what they obtained. I agree, but I go a step
further. Pace Rostand, I believe his play should be called a tragedy, not a
comedy. The principal character is a tragic hero, in the classic sense of
the term.
That sense is well expressed by The American Heritage® Dictionary of
the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) in its first definition of
"tragedy." "1a. A drama or literary work in which the main character is
brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of
a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable
circumstances."
The "main character" in this play, of course, is Cyrano. His "tragic flaw"
or "moral weakness" is an arrogant, overbearing desire, which can be
satisfied only by profound and continual deceit. He wants desperately to
make love to Roxane, but is blocked both by his huge, ugly nose and her
preference for Christian. As to Christian, when he first learns that Roxane
expects a letter from him, he fears rejection, being hopelessly inarticulate
in matters of love. Cyrano persuades Christian to secure Roxane, by
seeming to have a mind and soul like Cyrano's. This is accomplished by

having Christian write to Roxane, and speak under her balcony, the words
dictated by Cyrano. [Such a scheme, attempting to lend one person the
mind and soul of another, strikes me not only as deceitful, but impious,
playing with both the identity and integrity of individual minds and souls.]
Immediately after Christian and Roxane marry, the men leave for the
battlefront. But Cyrano continues, twice daily, to write to Roxane in
Christian's name, without telling him, never facing the falsity of his conduct,
or its possible effects. The ACTUAL effects are that Roxane falls madly in
love with the mind and soul that produces these letters, which she
assumes to be Christian's, and travels through enemy lines to join him.
When he asks why she is thus risking her life, she frankly describes the
tremendous impact of "his" letters. She believes they have displayed his
true self, his soul, which she now treasures far more than his good looks.
Indeed, she would still love him, even if he were ugly.
Christian, knowing that the soul these letters express is not his, insists
that Cyrano tell Roxane who wrote the letters, and that Christian wants her
freely to choose which man she wants. Meanwhile, Christian joins his
fellow cadets under fire. Answering Cyrano's doubts and repeated
questions, Roxane confirms that she would love Christian even if he were
ugly. Their conversation is interrupted by Christian's being carried back,
mortally wounded. Cyrano has not told Roxane who wrote the letters. As
Christian dies, Cyrano misleads him: "I have told her. She loves you."
From Roxane, Cyrano withholds the truth until he is dying in her
presence at the end of Act V. For 15 years, he has visited her weekly at a
convent, where she has taken refuge. In contrast to the mental and
emotional reach of his letters to her, and her response to them before
Christian's death, their typical conversation has been a report by Cyrano of
Court gossip. Their sorrows surely qualify as "extreme" in depth and
duration. Christian's sorrow was intense, but perhaps too brief to be
extreme.
When the central plot is so tragic, even ugly, why is the play so
entrancing? Partly, perhaps, because this arrogant, deceitful hero has
many desirable traits and abilities. To watch a richly endowed, free-
swinging, human being in action can be immensely entertaining. For
example, picking only traits whose names begin with the first nine letters of
the alphabet, here are 70 desirable qualities that Cyrano sometimes
exhibits:
ACCURATE, ACUTE, ADAPTABLE, ADVENTUROUS, AESTHETIC,
AFFECTIONATE, ALERT, APPRECIATIVE, ARTICULATE, ARTISTIC,
ASPIRING, ATTENTIVE; BRAVE; CAREFUL, CHARITABLE,
CHIVALROUS, COMPASSIONATE, CONCISE, CONSCIENTIOUS,
CONSTRUCTIVE, CONTEMPLATIVE, COOPERATIVE, COURTEOUS,
CREATIVE, CRITICAL, CURIOUS; DECENT, DECISIVE, DELIBERATE,
DETERMINED, DIGNIFIED, DILIGENT, DIRECT, DISCERNING,

DISCREET, DISCRIMINATING; EFFECTIVE, EFFICIENT, ELOQUENT,
EMPATHIC, ENERGETIC, ENTERPRISING, EQUITABLE, ETHICAL,
EXPRESSIVE; FAIR, FAITHFUL, FIRM, FORGIVING, FRANK;
GENEROUS, GENTLE, GOOD-HUMORED, GRACEFUL, GRACIOUS,
GREAT-HEARTED; HARD-WORKING, HONEST, HONORABLE,
HOSPITABLE; IDEALISTIC, IMAGINATIVE, INCISIVE, INDEPENDENT,
INGENIOUS, INQUISITIVE, INTELLECTUAL, INTELLIGENT,
INTROSPECTIVE, INTUITIVE.
Cherchez la femme! I blush to say that I had read and watched this play
many times before realizing that Cyrano's spectacular Act I coup is
motivated largely by his love for Roxane. After the audience has left,
Cyrano's friend, Le Bret, scolds him for all the enemies he has just made:
why did he do it? Cyrano replies that he had resolved always to do what
people will admire. Now, consider whose admiration he most wanted. In
advance, he knew that Roxane often attended this theatre, and even if not
present, would hear about his actions. As it turns out, she IS present, and
probably inspires much of the show he has just put on.
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