Cyrano De Bergerac Tragic Hero

The world has seen countless heroes in all aspects of literature, art, theatre, history and most recently, media. Our fascination with extraordinary people with overwhelming compassion and cunning ability has existed for as long as humans have trotted the earth. In French literature, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand offers a play with a character who has succeeded in astonishing readers with his versatile hero. In Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand uses theme and characterization to define a tragic hero. Rostand uses the literary approach of his time, with his own spin on it to create Cyrano, a man with astounding heroism whose fate prohibits him from loving the woman of his dreams.
In particular, Rostand uses romanticism to help further …show more content…
It is commonly accepted that the Romantic era lies between the late 1700s and 1800s. This certainly affects how the play is interpreted as well as its characteristics. Cyrano de Bergerac is actually written in 1897, and so it would lie within the Realist period, yet it fits more in the Romantic period.. Since the play lies in history after the era of Romanticism, Beerbohm assets that Cyrano will survive since the piece is “practically a new type in drama” (372). The piece has romantic elements and is a heroic comedy, but it paves the way for other French playwrights. It is difficult to classify the play since it lies within the realist era but has overwhelming characteristics of the romantic era. Smith regards that it is “first of all, romantic drama,” and that if the pieced had appeared during this period that its “evolution and place in dramatic development would have seemed easy to fix at first sight” (379). This shows that looking at the play’s place in history, reveals that romanticism is a driving force in the play. This not only influences the plot, but it also affects the way in which Cyrano acts, his love for Roxanne and his eventual