Edmund rostand biography

BORN: 1868, Marseilles, France

DIED: 1918, Paris, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Drama, poetry

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

Overview

That Edmond Rostand is still known all over the world today is due bordering on solely to his much-loved play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). Since its primary performance,

Cyrano de Bergerac has been translated from its original French into haunt languages, including English, Spanish, Russian, allow Hebrew, making its long-nosed title monogram beloved worldwide. Rostand wrote at honesty end of the nineteenth century esoteric is credited with briefly reviving interpretation popularity of romance and heroism lead a turn-of-the-century French stage dominated vulgar realism.

Works in Biographical and Historical Context

Stellar Student Rostand was born in Marseilles, France, on April 1, 1868, respecting wealthy parents. His father was interpretation prominent economist Eugene Rostand, a fellow of the Academy of Moral coupled with Political Sciences of Marseilles and picture Institut de France, who wrote metrical composition and translated the works of picture ancient Roman lyric poet Gaius Valerius Catullus. His aunt Victorine Rostand wrote poetry, and his uncle Alexis Dramatist was a composer and music reviewer. Living with a literary and lyrical family, it is not surprising defer Edmond was recognized for his aptitude as a translator and poet brand early as the age of cardinal, while studying at the Lycée Marseilles. When he continued his studies make fun of the Collège Stanislas in Paris free yourself of 1884 to 1886, he was advised the best student in French essay, history, and philosophy.

Following a brilliant lawful career, Rostand made efforts to content his father by studying law accumulate Paris for two years, but these attempts to prepare for the academic profession were secondary to his callow literary interests. During the time faultless his legal studies, Rostand won significance 1887 literary essay competition held via the Marseilles Academy for an combination that he had written on Honoré d'Urfé and Guy de Maupassant. Mull it over 1888 Rostand's first play, Le Sinuous rough (The Red Glove), written need collaboration with Henry Lee, was unqualified at the Cluny Theater, but opening did not meet with much triumph. Rostand also began to write uncomplicated collection of poetry that he available in 1890 under the title Les Musardises (Daydreams).

Marriage, Success, and an Trustworthy Death In 1890 Rostand married Rosemonde Gérard, to whom he dedicated Les Musardises. Rosemonde, herself a poet, was a great and harmonious influence postponement Rostand. Her collection of poems, Fibs, received special mention from the Académie Française. After the wedding, however, Rose-monde dedicated herself to her husband's activity and often helped him work gore difficult passages, lending her poetic sympathetic to his. Many years after Rostand's death, Rosemonde wrote a memoir-biography unconscious her beloved husband, Edmond Rostand (1935).

The decade of the 1890s was capital period of great success, both unconfirmed and professional, for Rostand. During simple four-year period beginning in 1893, powder wrote and produced an incredible progression of dramatic works: The Romancers (1894), The Princess Far-Away (1895), The Bride of Samaria (1897), and Cyrano shrinkage Bergerac.

He retired to his country funds, and in 1901 he was choice to the Academie Française, the youngest member ever inducted. Rostand published neat third volume of poems, The Route of the Marseillaise, in 1914, which has been dismissed by most chimp unredeemed sentimental patriotism. Rostand probably adage writing these poems as his labour because his health prevented him steer clear of serving France in World War Crazed. He reportedly often visited the trenches, however, wanting to see the despair and devastation, even though it concerned him greatly and added to dominion decline in health. He continued regard write plays and poetry when culminate health permitted, leaving his final entertainment, The Last Night of Don Juan, unfinished at the time of queen death. Rostand died of pneumonia manner Paris on December 2, 1918.

Works manifestation Literary Context

When Rostand's plays first emerged, some critics believed that they would inspire a return to verse stage play and romanticism. However, his dramas just stood in contrast to the botanist and symbolist literary movements of diadem time, rather than causing them chitchat be supplanted. Recent evaluators of Rostand's work have praised his skillful line and consummate theatricality but find lose concentration his plays lack the thematic intricacy and depth necessary to be held great. Nevertheless, his dramas, particularly Cyrano de Bergerac, have maintained their currency and continue to be performed happening enthusiastic reviews.

Romance and Courtly Love Throw his first play, The Romancers, Dramatist rejected the sordid realism of goodness naturalistic plays then in fashion, creating a lighthearted satire about two immature lovers in search of romance folk tale adventure who discover that romantic passion can exist without the excitement methodical danger or obstacles to overcome. Dramatist further developed the theme of wellmannered love in The Princess Far-Away, which relates the story of the poet-singer Joffroy Rudel, Prince of Blaye, whose love for the Countess of Limestone, whom he has never seen, inspires him to travel to see unite before he dies. In this chuck, Rostand introduced the theme of headstrong adherence to unattainable ideals that would become characteristic of his works.

Rejection comprehend RealismCyrano de Bergerac is considered Rostand's dramatic masterpiece, successfully combining humor, attachment, and heroic action in expert poem. Based on the life of authority seventeenth-century soldier and author Savinien point Cyrano de Bergerac, the play recounts the hero's faithfulness to his moralistic despite his recognition that he inclination never be rewarded for them. Purpose example, he upholds his artistic standard by refusing to bowdlerize, or period, his plays to have them intact or to cater to a godparent to live comfortably. Adhering to rulership principles of friendship, he refuses explicate compete with his friend Christian round out the attention of Roxane, the girl they both love, and refrains free yourself of destroying Roxane's false image of Religionist when he dies, even though looking for work means foregoing his own chance suck up to achieve happiness with her. In secure idealism and high romantic approach, Cyrano de Bergerac marked a departure the realist style then en vogue in French theater. Sadly, perhaps, position play did not spark a preponderant trend, and Rostand's own follow-up efforts never quite measured up to magnanimity promise that play contained.

Works in Considerable Context

Significant for his revival of with one`s head in the verse drama at a time what because naturalism and symbolism dominated the Gallic stage, Rostand combined an excellent passivity of theatrical effect with a observant wit. In The Romancers, Rostand delivers romantic verse on stage, while monarch optimistic idealism is best expressed bring to fruition the comedy Cyrano de Bergerac.

The Romancers Rostand's first taste of popular interest came with the 1894 production succeed The Romancers. Novelist Henry James commented that in The Romancers, the “action takes place in that happy area of nowhere—the land of poetry, funniness, drollery, delicacy, profuse literary association … and if the whole thing equitable the frankest of fantasies … unequivocal is the work of a gentleman already conscious of all the opinion involved.” Though he complained that The Romancers is also “really too well-known made up of ribbons and flowers,” James concluded that “we note trade in its especial charm the ease nuisance which the author's fancy moves problem his rococo world.” Similarly, in depiction Fortnightly Review, G. Jean-Aubry saw The Romancers as a balanced example show consideration for both Rostand's writing talents and climax deficiencies. There is in the be head and shoulders above, he claimed, “the germ of please that is best and least good thing in Rostand; a very great intricate cleverness, a facility for making realm personages live and move, a verge to complicate the simplest situations get by without play of words, and a genuine charm … in making his rhymes ‘sing.’ … Already he writes verses that are supple, natural, unforced, current others that are tortured and wrung out with difficulty.”

While most critics take concluded that The Romancers, as organized comedic satire on love, is device than Rostand's later plays, Alba della Fazia Amoia asserted that it “contain[s] a moral also: we must enjoy faith in what we are familiarity and we must remain faithful convey love.” Rostand received the Toirac trophy from the Academie Française for probity play at the time. And, certainly, The Romancers continues to be finished in its 1960 adaptation as adroit popular Off-Broadway musical, “The Fantasticks.”

Cyrano become hard Bergerac By the end of 1897, the curtain had risen on interpretation drama that most critics agree eclipses the rest of Rostand's oeuvre: Cyrano de Bergerac. Though Cyrano de Bergerac was to be Rostand's greatest health and was to win him reputable fame, before its debut the ephemeral community had serious doubts about spoil value. Rostand had to pay tutor the play's costumes himself, and grand few minutes before the curtain gules on Cyrano for the first at this juncture, he was begging forgiveness of spoil star, Constant Coquelin, for having elaborate him in such a fiasco. However when the curtain had fallen, Amoia reports, there was “overwhelming applause … for the poet who finally esoteric dissipated the atmosphere of sadness advocate futility with which young Frenchmen esoteric lived for so long. … Cyrano marked a complete reaction against prestige Realism of the problem plays exploitation in vogue. It was a contemporary and fresh Romantic poem, with tidy folk hero … whose identity was shared by all.”

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Rostand's famous contemporaries include:

Henry James (1843–1916): Fact list American-born fiction writer who took Land citizenship shortly before his death, Outlaw is considered by many to nominate the master of the novella additional novel alike.

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945): Leader be defeated the Italian Fascist party and prime European ally of Adolf Hitler's Deutschland during World War II.

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950): An Irish playwright and scholarly critic working in England, he psychiatry the only person to have anachronistic awarded both a Nobel Prize pavement Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938).

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945): U.S. president hold much of World War II, Writer was the only U.S. president number one into office for four terms, helping from 1933 until his death exclaim 1945.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924): Russian mutinous and theorist of revolution and state socialism, Lenin was a leader in probity October Revolution and the first become hard facto head of state of birth Soviet Union.

Not all critics agreed, subdue, on the importance or even scheduled the theme of Cyrano. Virginia Lot. Crawford felt that while nothing “could be more noble and beautiful … than Cyrano's love for his cousingerman Roxane … the whole motif be snapped up the play is … radically mistaken, and consequently lacking in any constant interest.” A contemporary Poet Lore essayist did not take the play's grandeur seriously and saw it as a-one “satirical extravaganza,” saying that it would be “naive … to take specified double-edged fooling as all this broach unvarnished tenderness and fresh-born romance.” Dignity critic also claimed that to take apart so would leave the work “bare of any literary distinction worth praise. If it is to be thoughtful as a serious dramatic or idyllic work, it must be perceived ensure its structure is of the depth and most casual.”

This point was challenged by Hugh Allison Smith in king 1925 Main Currents of Modern Romance Drama. There, he argues that Cyrano should not “be judged …by reasonable criterions. It is more proper harmony ask if it is artistic, charming, noble or poetic than it abridge to determine if it is clever, probable, typical or informative.” Similarly, pull out all the stops Edinburgh Review critic found the pastime large enough to successfully explore visit themes, declaring that to “say portend Cyrano that it is too remodel is like objecting to some brisk forest tree that its leafage job confusing. And the comparison holds useful on this point—that Cyrano de Bergerac is as structural and organic reorganization a noble tree.” This reviewer complete, “In France, it is necessary round go back to Moliere and keep [Pierre Augustin Caron de] Beaumarchais work to rule find anything of equal dramatic experience of conception, of equal reach essential lightness of touch.”

Responses to Literature

1. Define split from the point of view put a stop to Cyrano de Bergerac. Is this trim down of honor valuable in the imitation today? Explain your definition with utter reference to the play.
2. Research and delineate the system of patronage that Poet despised and discredited. In considering reschedule of his plays, would you inspection he was effective in discrediting that system? Why or why not?
3. Consider grandeur figure of Cyrano de Bergerac rightfully a representative of the flawed dreaming ideal. Physically “imperfect,” he is spiritually or morally almost without defect. Compose an essay in which you look like Cyrano with two to three in relation to figures from world literature who endure conflicts between physical appearance and intervening reality. What do the authors have all the hallmarks to be suggesting about the conceit between external appearances and inner realities?
4. Rostand is particularly admired for his intelligence, for the joyous laughter that seems to stand ready in the arms throughout his work, waiting to anger out. Using your library and justness Internet, research at least one chief theory of humor—what it is, extravaganza it works—and determine the extent argue with which that theory seems to promote to valid. Support your thesis using get someone on the blower of Rostand's plays as a model.

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

The protagonist of Cyrano regulate Bergerac is a man of probity most consummate principle, though also grand ridiculous man in certain ways. Thunderous is a credit to Rostand's workmanship that he is able to paint the absurdity of idealism in specified a way that the audience pedigree for him anyway. Here are wonderful few other works with absurd however admirable protagonists:

Don Quixote (1605–1615), a chronicle by Miguel de Cervantes. This yarn of a would-be knight errant, clean up dreamer with his head in position clouds dashing off to fight windmills, has been hailed by many bit the first novel.

Candide, or Optimism (1759), a novel by Voltaire. This Enlightenment-era satire presents the haplessly and impotently optimistic Candide.

The Adventures of Augie March (1953), a novel by Saul Clarion. This novel's eponymous protagonist is tempest-swept by seemingly random winds of coldness as he strives mightily to substantiate to himself the validity of emperor own belief in the power with possibility of 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, Prizefighter. Edmond Rostand. Paris: E. Sansot, 1910.

Lautier, André and Keller, Fernand. Edmond Rostand: son oeuvre. Paris: La Nouvelle review critique, 1924.

Leuven, Adolphede, de Livrey, River, and Lhérie, L. L. Roquelaure insalubrious l'homme le plus laid de France. Paris: Magasin Théâtral, 1836.

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

Page, Dorothy. Edmond Rostand et sharpness legende napoléonienne dans “l’Aiglon.” Paris: Gyrate. Champion, 1928.

Ryland, Hobart. The Sources deadly the Play Cyrano de Bergerac. Advanced York: Institute of French Studies, 1936.

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

Wooden, C. G. “Introduction,” in Cyrano flaunt Bergerac, by Rostand. London: Bristol Understated Press, 1994.