Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play is a fictionalization of his life following the broad outlines of it.

    The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the classical Alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the French Academy and the dames glimpsed before the performance in the first scene.

   The play has been translated and performed many times and is responsible for introducing the word “panache’ into the English language. Cyrano (the character) is in fact famed for his panache, and the play ends with him saying “My panache” just before his death. The two most famous English translations are those by Brian Hooker and Anthony Burgess.

    It is claimed Rostand stole the idea for the play from Samuel Eberly Gross, a Chicago real estate developer. In 1896 Gross wrote a play, The Merchant Prince of Corneville, published in Illinois in a limited edition of two hundred fifty copies. In 1902 Gross sued Rostand for plagiarizing this work. The judge, disregarding Rostand’s defense he had never seen or heard of Gross’ play, and ignoring the dissimilarities of character, style of writing, humor, and plot, found for the plaintiff and granted a permanent injunction against Rostand’s play ever appearing in the United States of America; this injunction may or may not still be in force.