Cyrano de Bergerac

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Cyrano de Bergerac

• By Edmond Rostand
• The last great romantic dramatist

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The author- Edmond Rostand

• Lived in Paris with his wife (also a writer)
• Completed Cyrano in 1897
• Wrote plays for Sarah Bernhardt great French
  actress
• Coquelin legendary comic star played the lead
  in Cyrano
• Rostand died in Paris in 1918

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History of 17th Century Paris

• 1610 Louis XIII becomes King of France.
• 1618 The Thirty Years War begins Austria and
  Spain go to war with a group of German Princes.
• 1624 Cardinal Richelieu becomes first minister
  of France.
• 1634 Spanish troops invade central and northern
  Europe.
• 1635 France declares war on Austria and Spain.

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• 1639 - The real Cyrano is wounded in battle.
• 1641 Cyrano leaves the army and takes up
  literature.
• 1643 Louis XIII dies, Louis the XIV becomes
  king.
• 1645 Cyrano dies from head
• injuries from a log dropped
• on his head.

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Terms you should know

• Comic relief a witty exchange, skit, or
  soliloquy that the author inserts to ease
  tensions within a serious work.
• Melodrama a romantic or sensational plot
  carried to the extremes of emotion in weeping, or
  dismay. The final act of Cyrano has been labeled
  melodrama

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Troubadours

• lyric poets in Southern France, northern Italy,
  and northern Spain, who composed songs about
  courtly love.
• A strolling minstrel.
• The real Cyrano was said to be a minstrel and
  great swordsmen.

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Dramatic Irony

• The dramatic effect achieved by leading an
  audience to understand an incongruity between a
  situation and the accompanying speeches, while
  the characters in the play remain unaware of the
  incongruity.

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Unrequited Love

            

• "Let no one who loves be unhappy. Even love
  unreturned has it's rainbow." -James Matthew
  Barrie
• "Nothing takes the taste
• out of peanut butter quite
• like unrequited love." -"Charlie Brown"
  

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Tragedy

• A drama or literary work in which the main
  character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme
  sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic
  flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with
  unfavorable circumstances.

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Themes and Motifs in Cyrano

• Unrequited love
• Physical beauty vs. spiritual beauty (is one more
  real than the other?)
• Heroism
• Arrogance
• Loyalty
• Sacrifice

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More famous noses
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Steve Martin in Roxanne