Cyrano De Bergerac
by Edmond Rostand
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edmond RostandTranslator: Lowell Blair
Introduction: Eteel Lawson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-08-05
ISBN: 0451528921
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Reviews of Cyrano De Bergerac
Book Review: A MARVELOUS PLAY, ESPECIALLY FOR LOVERS AND THINKERS
Summary: 5 Stars
Cyrano de Bergerac (Bantam Classics reissue)
(This review asks: What did the play's three main characters most desire, and what did they obtain? People who wish to read the play, knowing nothing about the plot, may prefer to skip this review.)
The complete title of 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, doubtless more dramatic, intelligent, and entertaining than the drama he replaces.
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 appearing 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, lending 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 human being in action can be immensely entertaining. For example, picking only those 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 was 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. Cyrano replies that he has resolved always to do things that 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 his performance.
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