Cyrano de Bergerac
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Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac (March 6, 1619 – July 28, 1655) was a French dramatist born in Paris, who is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story.
Cyrano was born into an old Parisian family and spent much of his childhood in Saint-Forget (now Yvelines). He went to school in Paris and spent his adult life there when he was not on campaign. He was not, therefore, a Gascon, but many of his fellow-soldiers would have been. The myth of his Gascon origins may even have been cultivated by him during his lifetime, since the swash-buckling manners of the Gascon soldiers were much admired in his day.
Cyrano de Bergerac was not a hugely talented writer, but the Rostand line about his work's being stolen by Molière probably has some basis in fact. His most prominent work is now published under the title 'otherworlds' and is a collection of stories describing his fictional journies to the Moon and Sun. The methods of space travel he describes are inventive and often ingenious, detailing ideas often broadly original and sometimes rooted in science. Cyrano rests alongside such minds as Kepler and Jules Verne under the genre of 'scientific travel fiction'. In his time, de Bergerac was a popular poet; however, his abilities were much exaggerated by Rostrand in his dramatical work. Cyrano was expert, however, in the art of dueling, whether from a touchy disposition or because of the many gibes to which he was subject on account of his appearance is uncertain. The real Cyrano did not have an exceptionally big nose, but that has become the prominent feature in all fictive versions of his life.
No Roxane has been discovered in his life, but he did fight at the Battle of Arras, where the historical Baron of Neuvillette, who was in fact married to Cyrano's cousin, died.
Cyrano was a free thinker, although he was a pupil of Pierre Gassendi, a Canon of the Catholic Church, albeit one who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity. Cyrano had the insistence on reason that was not common until the following century, and he would have been very much at home in the Enlightenment. This, of course, did not fit well in a period in which the Church and the State were supreme, and when even the laws of art were the rules of Aristotle.
He died in Sannois at the age of 36.
Cyrano de Bergerac in fiction
In 1897, the French poet Edmond Rostand published a play, Cyrano de Bergerac, on the subject of Cyrano's life. This play, by far Rostand's most successful work, concentrates on Cyrano's love for the beautiful Roxane, whom he is obliged to woo on behalf of a more conventionally handsome, but less articulate, friend, Christian de Neuvillette, with whom she already is in love.
The play has been translated and performed many times, and is responsible for introducing the word panache into the English language. It has been the subject of several films, including a 1950 film starring José Ferrer (for which he won an Academy Award), a 1990 French-language version starring Gérard Depardieu, and a comedic Hollywood version, Roxanne, starring Steve Martin.
A fictionalized version of Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac is one of the main characters in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld novels.
See also
- asteroid 3582 Cyrano, named after de Bergerac.
External links
- Template:Gutenberg—English language edition.
- Template:Gutenberg—French language edition.de:Cyrano de Bergerac
eo:Cyrano de Bergerac fr:Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac it:Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac sv:Cyrano de Bergerac uk:Савіньєн Сірано де Бержерак