Cyrano de Bergerac (play)

Cyrano de Bergerac is a French verse play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. It draws on elements of the life of the 17th-century novelist and playwright Cyrano de Bergerac, combined with invention and myth, and it is best known for its hero, a brilliant poet and duelist whose very large nose makes him doubt that he can be loved. He helps the handsome but tongue-tied cadet Christian de Neuvillette court their shared beloved, Roxane, by writing the love letters that Christian signs. The whole play is composed in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, close to the classical alexandrine, and it is carefully researched, down to the names of members of the Academie francaise glimpsed in the first scene. It opened on 27 December 1897 at the Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris to a long ovation. The play has been translated and performed many times, and it is credited with introducing the word panache into English; the best-known English translations are by Brian Hooker, Anthony Burgess and Louis Untermeyer.