Cyrano de Bergerac

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Cyrano de Bergerac
Image:Gravure-cyrano2 lien.jpg Cyrano de Bergerac
Born	6 March 1619 Paris, France
Died	28 July 1655 Paris, France
Occupation	Playwright, Military

Cyrano Hercule Savinien de Bergerac (6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French dramatist and duellist born in Paris, who is now best remembered for the many works of fiction which have been woven around his life story, most notably the play by Edmond Rostand which bears his name (see Cyrano de Bergerac (play)). In those fictional works he is featured with an overly large nose.

Contents 1 Life and works 2 In fiction, film, theater, and opera 3 Trivia 4 See also 5 External links

Life and works

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. The real Cyrano de Bergerac had little in common with the hero of the Rostand play.

Though not as famous as classical writers of this time, Cyrano de Bergerac was a successful writer. Even Molière 'borrowed' a scene from Cyrano's work Le Pédant Joué. Cyrano's most prominent work is now published under the title 'Other Worlds', a collection of stories describing his fictional journeys 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; in addition, he was a fine swordsman, as depicted, and though his abilities were exaggerated by Rostand, he fought many duels to defend his honour. There has been considerable speculation about his sexuality among historians and other scholars, though it must be remembered that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality was less categorical in the 17th Century than now.[1][2][3][4]

Around 1640, he became the lover of Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy, another writer and musician. They broke up in 1653, probably out of jealousy, and Bergerac sent him death threats that forced him to leave Paris. The feud also extended to a series of satirical texts by both men. Bergerac wrote Contre Soucidas (an anagram of his enemy's name) and Contre un ingrat ("Against an Ungrateful Person"), while D’Assoucy counterattacked with Le Combat de Cyrano de Bergerac avec le singe de Brioché au bout du Pont-Neuf ("The Battle Between Cyrano de Bergerac and Brioché's Monkey On the Pont-Neuf Bridge").

Like the Roxane who appears in the Rostand play, the real Roxane was Cyrano's cousin, Mme. de Neufvilette, who, along with his aunt, Catherine de Cyrano, lived at the Convent of the Daughter of the Cross, where he was tended for wounds sustained from a falling beam. [5] As in the play, he did fight at the siege of Arras (1640), which should not be confused with the more famous final Battle of Arras (1654). One of his confreres in the battle was the historical Baron of Neuvillette, who was married to Cyrano's cousin.

Cyrano was a freethinker and a pupil of Pierre Gassendi, a Canon of the Catholic Church who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity. Cyrano's insistence on reason was rare in his time, and he would have been very much at home in the Enlightenment that came a century after his death. His free thinking, 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 based on the rules of Aristotle.

He died in Sannois in 1655, at the age of 36.

In fiction, film, theater, and opera

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. 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 1987 comedic Hollywood version, Roxanne, starring Steve Martin. A Japanese samurai version, Samurai Saga (1959), was directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starred Toshiro Mifune.

Operatic Adaptations: Victor Herbert (1859-1924) libretto by H.B. Smith & S. Reed in 1899 in New York City; Walter Damrosch (1862-1950) libretto by W.J. Henderson performed at the NY Metropolitan Opera in 1913; Franco Alfano libretto by Henri Cain first shown in 1936 revived at the NY Metropolitan Opera in 2005-06 with Plácido Domingo as Cyrano. Eino Tamberg (b. Tallinn, Estonia, 27 May 1930) libretto by J. Kross performed at the Estonia Theatre, Tallinn, 1978.

A fictionalized version of Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac is one of the main characters in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld novels. The play has also been rewritten by Geraldine McCaughrean. Her book entitled 'Cyrano' has been longlisted for the Carnegie Award 2007.

Two musical adaptations, Cyrano (1973) and Cyrano: The Musical (1993), were critical and commercial failures when produced on Broadway.

Trivia

• The Swedish socialist leader Ture Nerman wrote a biography of Cyrano de Bergerac.
• The Greek composer and songwriter Nikolas Asimos makes a reference to Cyrano de Bergerac in his song Ta adieksoda sou in his album I Zavolia.
• In an episode entitled 'Halloween' on the American sit-com Frasier, Niles attends a costume party dressed as Cyrano de Bergerac complete with overly large nose and plume. Furthermore, the second scene of the episode sees Niles engage in heroically reckless behavior infamously attributed to Bergerac. Furthering the irony this scene is titled 'panache'
• In common with several other historical figures, de Bergerac figures prominently in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld saga of science-fiction novels. Resurrected on the banks of the great River, alongside the rest of humanity, de Bergerac travels up the river looking for rare metal with which to make himself a proper sword. Finding the metal he desires in a land run by Samuel Clemens, de Bergerac is at first despised and mistrusted by Clemens since he travels in the company of Clemens' beloved Earth wife Olivia, who has taken de Bergerac as her lover. Despite this, de Bergerac soon proves himself a valuable resource as a result of his considerable wit, grace and martial skills. These skills, alongside his keen instincts and reflexes lead him to later be named the Chief pilot of an airship built to explore the great River. When the airship is destroyed, de Bergerac finds himself the only survivor and soon rejoins Clemens, who eventually comes to respect and like the Frenchman. Serving on Clemens' riverboat de Bergerac takes part in the battle that destroys both Clemens' riverboat and that of his nemesis King John of England. During the battle de Bergerac meets, converses with, and duels a disguised Richard Francis Burton. At the completion of the duel, which is only to the first-blood, de Bergerac is mortally wounded by Burtons' lover, ignorant of the rules of the contest. At the end of the series de Bergerac is resurrected by Burton using the machinery of the Riverworld.

See also

• Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
• Cyrano de Bergerac (film)
• Asteroid 3582 Cyrano, named after de Bergerac.

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