Cyrano De Bergerac Analysis

Percy Shelley wrote that “ A poet is a nightingale that, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.” Shelley was a proponent of the romantic idealism of individuality, as was Edmund Rostand in his work, Cyrano de Bergerac. In this piece, Rostand creates a contrast between the conformity of realism and the romantic ideal of singularity utilizing the two characters of Le Bret and Cyrano. Le Bret, in the beginning of the excerpt, makes a disparaging comment regarding Cyrano’s rejection of fame and success in the favor of morality, implying that Cyrano is attempting to be more than his station in life. Cyrano reacts to this somewhat snide remark in an outraged and disgusted manner, as he feels that, for an artist to have a successful life, one must become a “leaching vine”, and abandon one’s individuality and intellect. Following his harsh vociferation and ridicule towards the tribulations that one …show more content…
He aims in his commentary to make Cyrano’s morality a joke, and with that he reveals his patronizing nature, as if he is above such petty things as morals. In the use of the “three musketeers and Don Christ Quixote”, characters in literature who are renowned for their righteousness and morality, he brings Cyrano’s stance on fame and success to the level of those characters- admirable, but ultimately ridiculed and fictional. It is clear that he does not care much for the- to him, fanciful- beliefs of his companion and is considerably exasperated by the reluctance of his acquaintance to prosper. Le Bret is condescending and conceited in the extreme, in supposing that his ideals of prosperity are any better than Cyrano’s vision of a life free from the “dirty road to advancement”. He notes that Cyrano has great potential, telling him that he’d “wing up to the top”, but is unaware of the thing that he values the most in his art-