Cyrano De Bergerac: Heroic Comedy in Five Acts - Softcover

Rostand, Edmond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451525485 ISBN 13: 9780451525482

Publisher: Penguin, 1992

Synopsis

Regarded as one of the greatest dramas ever written, Cyrano de Bergerac is the story of the silver-tongued soldier whose unfortunate looks drive him to woo his love by speaking for his handsome but dull-witted rival. Cyrano de Bergerac occupies a unique place in the modern theater. Deliberately disavowing realism and contemporary relevance, Edmond Rostand’s masterpiece represents a turning back in both time and spirit to an earlier age of high adventure and soaring idealism. Its magnificent hero, Cyrano—noble of soul and grotesque in appearance, gallant Gascon soldier, brilliant wit, and timid lover, alternately comic, heroic, tragic—represents one of the most challenging of all acting roles in its complexity and mercurial changes of mood. From its original production to the present day, Cyrano de Bergerac has enjoyed a charmed existence on the stage, its unflagging pace of action and eloquence of language enchanting critics and public alike. Here, in a superlative translation, is the ultimate triumph of the great French romantic tradition—a work which, in the words of the French critic Lemaître, “prolongs, unites and blends...three centuries of comic fantasy and moral grace.”

About this title

About the Author:

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. He was born in Marseille, France, into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. He studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, France. In the 1900s, he came to live in the Villa Arnaga in Cambo-les-Bains in the French Basque Country looking for a cure for his pleurisy. The house is now a heritage site and a museum of Rostand's life and Basque architecture and crafts. Rostand died in 1918, a victim of the flu pandemic, and is buried in the Cimetière de Marseille.

Synopsis:

Presents a contemporary translation in prose of Rostand's classic romantic drama portraying the swordsman and poet.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0451525485
• ISBN 13: 9780451525482
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224