Cyrano de Bergerac (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Seventeenth Century: Thirty Years War

Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac in the late 1890s but set it in the mid-1600s. While the late 1890s was a period of great industrial and technological advancement, the mid-1600s (the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV) was a time of political intrigue and artistic intellectualism. It is important to understand both periods to truly understand the effect on Rostand’s Heroic Comedy.

France in the 1640s was still feeling the effects of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Fought mainly in Germany, the war saw the German Protestant Princes, France, Sweden, Denmark, and England fighting the Holy Roman Empire (including the Catholic Princes of Germany and the countries of Austria, Spain, Bohemia, and Italy). The war was fought primarily over trade, and control over the various trade routes to the east.

The war itself ended for most countries in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. Fighting went on between France and Spain, however, and in 1654 the Spanish laid siege to Arras in northwestern

France. The real Cyrano de Bergerac fought in this siege, and Rostand uses this historical fact for the setting of Act II.

Seventeenth Century: Civil Unrest

French nobles, upset with the unreasonable taxation, high tarriffs, and road tolls engaged the aid of Spanish troops and staged a rebellion against Cardinal Mazarin in 1648. The Cardinal was running the government for the eight-year-old Louis XIV. The aristocracy allied with the rising middle class in France to put down the rebellion. The public was outraged that the nobles were allied with France’s enemy Spain. The conflict provided the opportunity later on for Louis XIV to consolidate his power over France and become an absolute ruler.

Seventeenth Century: Literature

During the reign of Louis XIV (The Sun King), French literature, arts, and philosophy became the standard for all of Europe. The Academie Francaise, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1634, sought to protect the French language by guarding against slang and poor grammar in all art and literature. (Edmond Rostand would become its youngest member ever inducted in 1901.) With a strong monarchy, the French had more leisure time for artistic pursuits than ever before.

The audience for theater in the 1600s tended to be the small elite group of aristocrats who could afford to patronize the arts. The refined style of the time period reflected the lifestyle of the patrons, who could afford to “keep” artists in their circle. Writers were generally poor in the seventeenth century and persuaded nobles, landowners, and even Louis XIV to finance their works (an idea which has formed more organized roots in modern drama in the form of government subsidies and grants for the arts and the grants and fellowships awarded to artists by various private and public foundations). Authors often included extreme flattery of their patrons in their books. The real-life Cyrano de Bergerac was sickened by this flattery but eventually was forced to seek the patronage of the Duke of Arpajon. Rostand depicts de Bergerac’s feelings in his play, having his fictional Cyrano state: “Dedicate my works to men of wealth?/ Become a sedulous ape, a fool who waits/For some official’s patronizing smile?/No, thank you, . . . I prefer to sing, to dream, to play/To travel light, to be at liberty.”

Seventeenth Century: Salons

Literary works in the seventeenth century were read and discussed in salons. These salons, or ruelles as they were called, were often hosted by a French noblewoman who entertained aristocrats, writers, and philosophers while sitting on her bed. Meeting in this situation brought a “much needed refining influence on both the manners and language” of the gentlemen in attendence, according to John Lough in his book An Introduction to Seventeenth-Century France. Madeleine Robineau, whom Rostand used as a model for Roxane, was an intellectual who was a fixture and frequent hostess of such events.

1890s: Politics

Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac in the late 1890s. The year it debuted the French deposed Madagascar’s Queen Ranavalona, ending the one hundred year Hova dynasty; a Franco-German agreement defined the boundary between Dahomey and Togoland; and Britain and France inched ever closer to a possible conflict over colonial territories. The United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands much to the dismay of the Japanese; who still had 25,000 nationals there. Also, England’s Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee — seventy-five years of rule. Despite the threat of various conflicts, the world was at a time of relative peace.

1890s: Science

In 1897 English physicist Joseph John Thomson proved that an atom was made up of electrons orbiting a nucleus, and that each element had a different number of electrons, and a different weight. The discovery of the atom opened the door to numerous advances in science and, later in the twentieth century, made everything from space travel to nuclear power possible. The malaria parasite was found to be carried by the Amopheles mosquito — a discovery that would lead to the widespread use of insecticides and the draining of wetlands where the insects bred. Also in 1897, the cathode ray tube was invented; which would eventually lead to the development of television and wireless communication.

1890s: Literature

In literature and entertainment, the Library of Congress was completed in Washington D.C. in 1897. The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling, and Dracula by Bram Stoker were all published for the first time in 1897. Other plays that made their debut that year were John Gabriel Borkman by Henrik Ibsen, The Devil’s Disciple by George Bernard Shaw, and The Liars by Henry Arthur Jones.

Edmond Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac at a time when Naturalism was a major force in the literary world. His heroic comedy was a complete contrast to what most of his contemporaries were writing at the time. While Ibsen was focused on Naturalism and Maeterlinck on Symbolism, de Bergerac used the Romanticism of the 1640’s to create a completely different theater experience for his audience. The 1890’s was a time of great change in the world, a time of forged alliances, technological and industrial advances, and social, political, and artistic upheaval. By setting Cyrano in the seventeenth century and basing the hero on a real-life character, the playwright was free to explore a more exotic and romatic time. As Lionel Strachey wrote in a review of the play in Lippincott’s,“Rostand is the preeminent verbalist and sentimentalist of the French drama. He has the perennial talent of the right word in the right place, and that without prejudice to rhyme.” Rostand’s talent was to create a heroic character in Cyrano who transcends time.

Compare & Contrast

• 1600s: The real Cyrano de Bergerac writes Histoire comique des etats et empires de la lune et du soleil, chronicling his “adventures” on the moon.

  1890s: The atom is discovered to be composed of a nucleus orbited by bodies called electrons. This discovery leads to the advent of space flight and the nuclear age.

  Today: The Space Shuttle makes routine visits to Earth orbit, and there is preparation for a future visit to Mars.

• 1640s: The Thirty Years War comes to an end for most countries with the Peace of Westphalia, but France and Spain continue to fight over territory until the end of the seventeenth century.

  1890s: European countries continue to pursue colonization of the Third World in order to compete with each other for power. France deposes Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, while Cuba demands independence from Spain.

  Today: The European Union continues to evolve, making France and Spain member states of a new federation.

• 1600s: Great plays and books were discussed in the salons of Paris, among the aristocrats and nobles who could afford to spend their leisure time discussing and going to the theater. Most common people did not have this luxury.

  1890s: Through the availability of newspapers and magazines, critics all over the world discussed the great works at the turn of the century. Most people have some access to the arts.

  Today: People from all over the world and of all social classes can read and discuss art and literature over the internet. Information is more widely available than ever before, and it is accessible almost immediately.

• 1640s: Society was organized into a strict class structure: aristocrats and nobles, the merchant middle-class, and the rural peasants and farmers who worked the land. A great majority of people went uneducated.

  1890s: The Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s drew more people into the cities to work in factories. Society becomes more urbanized, as people leave their jobs in the fields for work these new industries. More and more people are being educated, and there is new emphasis on staying in school.

  Today: The Technological Revolution is producing more and more office jobs as workers are being “downsized” and laid off from their factory positions. As society and industry becomes more mechanized there are fewer jobs for unskilled workers, and there is a great demand for those workers with a college education.