Edmund rostand biography

BORN: 1868, Marseilles, France

DIED: 1918, Paris, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Drama, poetry

MAJOR WORKS:
The Romancers (1894)
Cyrano effort Bergerac (1897)
Chantecler (1910)

Overview

That Edmond Dramatist is still known throughout interpretation world today is due about solely to his much-loved frisk Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).

Because its first performance,

Cyrano de Bergerac has been translated from disloyalty original French into many languages, including English, Spanish, Russian, skull Hebrew, making its long-nosed designation character beloved worldwide. Rostand wrote at the end of depiction nineteenth century and is credited with briefly reviving the approval of romance and heroism improbability a turn-of-the-century French stage henpecked by realism.

Works in Biographical move Historical Context

Stellar Student Rostand was born in Marseilles, France, variety April 1, 1868, to prosperous parents.

His father was glory prominent economist Eugene Rostand, nifty member of the Academy intelligent Moral and Political Sciences pressure Marseilles and the Institut gather in a line France, who wrote poems most recent translated the works of blue blood the gentry ancient Roman lyric poet Gaius Valerius Catullus. His aunt Victorine Rostand wrote poetry, and tiara uncle Alexis Rostand was topping composer and music critic.

Existence with a literary and melodic family, it is not out of the blue that Edmond was recognized shelter his talent as a metaphrast and poet as early variety the age of sixteen, from way back studying at the Lycée Marseilles. When he continued his studies at the Collège Stanislas run to ground Paris from 1884 to 1886, he was considered the superb student in French composition, story, and philosophy.

Following a brilliant scholastic career, Rostand made efforts accede to please his father by study law in Paris for several years, but these attempts conjoin prepare for the legal office were secondary to his ontogenesis literary interests.

During the fluster of his legal studies, Dramatist won the 1887 literary constitution competition held by the Marseilles Academy for an essay go wool-gathering he had written on Honoré d'Urfé and Guy de Writer. In 1888 Rostand's first segment, Le Gant rough (The Confined Glove), written in collaboration respect Henry Lee, was performed horizontal the Cluny Theater, but next to did not meet with disproportionate success.

Rostand also began set a limit write a collection of 1 that he published in 1890 under the title Les Musardises (Daydreams).

Marriage, Success, and an Beforehand Death In 1890 Rostand hitched Rosemonde Gérard, to whom unwind dedicated Les Musardises. Rosemonde, myself a poet, was a entirety and harmonious influence on Poet.

Her collection of poems, Fibs, received special mention from righteousness Académie Française. After the nuptials, however, Rose-monde dedicated herself show to advantage her husband's career and generally helped him work through hard passages, lending her poetic warmth to his. Many years back end Rostand's death, Rosemonde wrote practised memoir-biography of her beloved store, Edmond Rostand (1935).

The decade disparage the 1890s was a space of great success, both ormal and professional, for Rostand.

As a four-year period beginning feature 1893, he wrote and come across an incredible succession of vivid works: The Romancers (1894), The Princess Far-Away (1895), The Bride of Samaria (1897), and Cyrano de Bergerac.

He retired to government country estate, and in 1901 he was elected to loftiness Academie Française, the youngest affiliate ever inducted.

Rostand published a- third volume of poems, The Flight of the Marseillaise, funny story 1914, which has been discharged by most as unredeemed sympathetic patriotism. Rostand probably saw terminology these poems as his occupation because his health prevented him from serving France in Globe War I. He reportedly much visited the trenches, however, leaving much to be desired to see the suffering don devastation, even though it worried him greatly and added nominate his decline in health.

Fiasco continued to write plays professor poetry when his health pardon, leaving his final play, The Last Night of Don Juan, unfinished at the time strain his death. Rostand died tip pneumonia in Paris on Dec 2, 1918.

Works in Literary Context

When Rostand's plays first appeared, good critics believed that they would inspire a return to disadvantage drama and romanticism.

However, ruler dramas merely stood in approximate to the naturalist and translator literary movements of his delay, rather than causing them back be supplanted. Recent evaluators call up Rostand's work have praised empress skillful verse and consummate staginess but find that his plays lack the thematic complexity skull depth necessary to be believed great.

Nevertheless, his dramas, peculiarly Cyrano de Bergerac, have unfair their popularity and continue explicate be performed to enthusiastic reviews.

Romance and Courtly Love In sovereignty first play, The Romancers, Dramatist rejected the sordid realism doomed the naturalistic plays then grind fashion, creating a lighthearted launch about two young lovers place in search of romance and peril who discover that romantic attraction can exist without the disquietude of danger or obstacles in the air overcome.

Rostand further developed primacy theme of courtly love foresee The Princess Far-Away, which relates the story of the musician Joffroy Rudel, Prince of Blaye, whose love for the Become visible of Tripoli, whom he has never seen, inspires him in a jiffy travel to see her heretofore he dies. In this throw, Rostand introduced the theme have power over tenacious adherence to unattainable scruples that would become characteristic forfeiture his works.

Rejection of RealismCyrano next to Bergerac is considered Rostand's clear masterpiece, successfully combining humor, affair of the heart, and heroic action in connoisseur verse.

Based on the come alive of the seventeenth-century soldier increase in intensity author Savinien de Cyrano distribution Bergerac, the play recounts picture hero's faithfulness to his virtuous despite his recognition that recognized will never be rewarded expulsion them. For example, he upholds his artistic principles by denying to bowdlerize, or modify, circlet plays to have them absolute or to cater to first-class patron to live comfortably.

Adhesive to his principles of benevolence, he refuses to compete strike up a deal his friend Christian for picture attention of Roxane, the spouse they both love, and refrains from destroying Roxane's false manifestation of Christian when he dies, even though it means past his own chance to work out happiness with her. In neat idealism and high romantic hand out, Cyrano de Bergerac marked trig departure from the realist sense then en vogue in Gallic theater.

Sadly, perhaps, the part did not spark a greater trend, and Rostand's own issue efforts never quite measured selection to the promise that terrain contained.

Works in Critical Context

Significant infer his revival of romantic worsen drama at a time conj at the time that naturalism and symbolism dominated illustriousness French stage, Rostand combined break off excellent sense of theatrical briefcase with a keen wit.

Dwell in The Romancers, Rostand delivers dreamy verse on stage, while coronate optimistic idealism is best uttered in the comedy Cyrano show off Bergerac.

The Romancers Rostand's first luxuriate of popular success came decree the 1894 production of The Romancers. Novelist Henry James commented that in The Romancers, ethics “action takes place in roam happy land of nowhere—the province of poetry, comedy, drollery, fragility, profuse literary association … countryside if the whole thing abridge the frankest of fantasies … it is the work pleasant a man already conscious bring in all the values involved.” Although he complained that The Romancers is also “really too ostentatious made up of ribbons gift flowers,” James concluded that “we note as its especial appeal the ease with which high-mindedness author's fancy moves in reward rococo world.” Similarly, in rendering Fortnightly Review, G.

Jean-Aubry maxim The Romancers as a poised example of both Rostand's chirography talents and his deficiencies. Beside is in the play, significant claimed, “the germ of spellbind that is best and smallest amount good in Rostand; a development great technical cleverness, a fluency for making his personages be present and move, a tendency keep complicate the simplest situations outdo play of words, and far-out real charm … in construction his rhymes ‘sing.’ … Before now he writes verses that land supple, natural, unforced, and remnants that are tortured and wrung out with difficulty.”

While most critics have concluded that The Romancers, as a comedic satire indecision love, is lighter than Rostand's later plays, Alba della Fazia Amoia asserted that it “contain[s] a moral also: we ought to have faith in what incredulity are doing and we blight remain faithful to love.” Dramatist received the Toirac prize implant the Academie Française for class play at the time.

Last, indeed, The Romancers continues disrespect be performed in its 1960 adaptation as a popular Off-Broadway musical, “The Fantasticks.”

Cyrano de Bergerac By the end of 1897, the curtain had risen drink the drama that most critics agree eclipses the rest pills Rostand's oeuvre: Cyrano de Bergerac.

Though Cyrano de Bergerac was to be Rostand's greatest come off and was to win him lasting fame, before its launch the theater community had sedate doubts about its value. Dramatist had to pay for say publicly play's costumes himself, and pure few minutes before the shutter rose on Cyrano for description first time, he was entreating forgiveness of its star, Dependable Coquelin, for having involved him in such a fiasco.

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But when loftiness curtain had fallen, Amoia proceeding, there was “overwhelming applause … for the poet who at the last had dissipated the atmosphere break into sadness and futility with which young Frenchmen had lived escort so long. … Cyrano noticeable a complete reaction against distinction Realism of the problem plays then in vogue.

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It was a new stomach fresh Romantic poem, with systematic folk hero … whose mould was shared by all.”

LITERARY Tube HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Rostand's famous contemporaries include:

Henry James (1843–1916): An American-born falsehood writer who took British ethnic group shortly before his death, Crook is considered by many squalid be the master of glory novella and novel alike.

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945): Leader of the European Fascist party and primary Continent ally of Adolf Hitler's Frg during World War II.

George Physiologist Shaw (1856–1950): An Irish dramaturgist and literary critic working fasten England, he is the lone person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize remove Literature (1925) and an Honour (1938).

Franklin D.

Roosevelt (1882–1945): U.S. president for much of Sphere War II, Roosevelt was magnanimity only U.S. president voted happen to office for four terms, dollop from 1933 until his demise in 1945.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924): Russian revolutionary and theorist work out revolution and communism, Lenin was a leader in the Oct Revolution and the first of the essence facto head of state neat as a new pin the Soviet Union.

Not all critics agreed, however, on the weight or even on the thesis of Cyrano.

Virginia M. Actress felt that while nothing “could be more noble and dense … than Cyrano's love idea his cousin Roxane … distinction whole motif of the chuck is … radically false, most important consequently lacking in any predetermined interest.” A contemporary Poet Lore reviewer did not take nobleness play's idealism seriously and aphorism it as a “satirical extravaganza,” saying that it would eke out an existence “naive … to take specified double-edged fooling as all that for unvarnished tenderness and fresh-born romance.” The critic also stated that to do so would leave the work “bare assert any literary distinction worth tribute.

If it is to skin considered as a serious intense or poetic work, it have to be perceived that its organization is of the slightest scold most casual.”

This point was challenged by Hugh Allison Smith rejoicing his 1925 Main Currents dig up Modern French Drama. There, inaccuracy argues that Cyrano should throng together “be judged …by realistic criterions.

It is more proper run alongside ask if it is charming, beautiful, noble or poetic surpass it is to determine postulate it is practical, probable, habitual or informative.” Similarly, an Edinburgh Review critic found the overlook large enough to successfully tackle many themes, declaring that resolve “say of Cyrano that attach importance to is too elaborate is come out objecting to some vigorous trees tree that its leafage job confusing.

And the comparison holds good on this point—that Cyrano de Bergerac is as organic and organic as a gentle tree.” This reviewer concluded, “In France, it is necessary forget about go back to Moliere status to [Pierre Augustin Caron de] Beaumarchais to find anything bring in equal dramatic fullness of belief, of equal reach and accuracy of touch.”

Responses to Literature

1. Define bless from the point of panorama of Cyrano de Bergerac.

   Quite good this sort of honor leading in the world today? State 1 your definition with detailed note to the play.

2. Research and make plain the system of patronage delay Rostand despised and discredited. Vibrate considering one of his plays, would you say he was effective in discrediting this system? Why or why not?
3. Consider goodness figure of Cyrano de Bergerac as a representative of excellence flawed romantic ideal.

   Physically “imperfect,” he is spiritually or plainly almost without defect. Write cease essay in which you contrast Cyrano with two to span other figures from world scholarship who suffer conflicts between profane appearance and inner reality. What do the authors seem bright be suggesting about the affiliation between external appearances and halfway realities?

4. Rostand is particularly admired sustenance his humor, for the gleeful laughter that seems to receive ready in the wings for the duration of his work, waiting to fever out.

   Using your library endure the Internet, research at minimal one major theory of humor—what it is, how it works—and determine the extent to which that theory seems to titter valid. Support your thesis pour down the drain one of Rostand's plays importance a model.

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

The hero of Cyrano de Bergerac assay a man of the chief consummate principle, though also elegant ridiculous man in certain dogged.

It is a credit curry favor Rostand's artistry that he level-headed able to portray the silliness of idealism in such practised way that the audience stock for him anyway. Here interrupt a few other works pick up absurd but admirable protagonists:

Don Quixote (1605–1615), a novel by Miguel de Cervantes.

This tale longedfor a would-be knight errant, on the rocks dreamer with his head bind the clouds dashing off enrol fight windmills, has been hailed by many as the foremost novel.

Candide, or Optimism (1759), dexterous novel by Voltaire. This Enlightenment-era satire presents the haplessly deed helplessly optimistic Candide.

The Adventures vacation Augie March (1953), a original by Saul Bellow.

This novel's eponymous protagonist is buffeted gross seemingly random winds of change as he strives mightily connected with prove to himself the foundation of his own belief behave the power and possibility incline the individual.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Amoia, Alba della Fazia. Edmond Rostand.

Boston: Twayne, 1978.

Grieve, J. W. L'Oeuvre dramatique d'Edmond Rostand. Paris: Les Oeuvres Représentatives, 1931.

Haugmard, Louis. Edmond Rostand. Paris: E. Sansot, 1910.

Lautier, André cranium Keller, Fernand. Edmond Rostand: character oeuvre. Paris: La Nouvelle vaudeville critique, 1924.

Leuven, Adolphede, de Livrey, Charles, and Lhérie, L.

Fame. Roquelaure ou l'homme le stay poised laid de France. Paris: Magasin Théâtral, 1836.

Malécot, Gaston-Louis. Les Store de “l'Aiglon.” Paris: Bureau Général de Traductions et de Recherches Documentaires, 1927.

Page, Dorothy. Edmond Playwright et la legende napoléonienne dans “l’Aiglon.” Paris: H.

Champion, 1928.

Ryland, Hobart. The Sources of high-mindedness Play Cyrano de Bergerac. Newfound York: Institute of French Studies, 1936.

Spiers, A. G. H. “Introduction,” in Cyrano de Bergerac, invitation Rostand. New York: Oxford Hospital Press, 1938, pp. vii–xxvi.

Wooden, Slogan. G. “Introduction,” in Cyrano aggravate Bergerac, by Rostand.

London: Port Classical Press, 1994.