Cyrano at 400

Abstract

The quadri-centennial of the birth of Cyrano de Bergerac was an occasion widely commemorated in France throughout 2019, yet it was largely ignored in the anglophone world. This article discusses both the seventeenth-century historical Cyrano, the author and soldier, and the eponymous nineteenth-century romantic drama that established his fame as the poet-orator with “a nose like a peninsula.” Written in rhymed couplets by Edmond Rostand in 1897, the play resurrected the near-forgotten historical Cyrano and immortalized him, taking poetic liberties that transformed “Cyrano” into both a name recognized on every continent and the best-known French literary hero ever created.