Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Discover world history, culture and ideas with today’s leading experts

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: Cyrano de Bergerac: Big-nosed hero

Cyrano de Bergerac by the Comédie-Française, featuring Michel Vuillermoz as Cyrano,  Paris, May, 2006.

05/12/2019 GMT

Cyrano de Bergerac: Big-nosed hero

BBC World Service - The Forum, Cyrano de Bergerac: Big-nosed hero

The swashbuckling poet of a late 19th-century French play and his real-life inspiration

Bridget Kendall finds out how an obscure 17th-century French philosopher was immortalised in a much-loved character with guests Clémence Caritté, Isabelle Moreau and John Rodden.

Although the name conjures up the image of a swashbuckling poet with an enormous nose, little is known about the life of the maverick 17th-century writer and philosopher Cyrano de Bergerac. Born four centuries ago, he left behind a play, love letters and a handful of strange travelogues that imagine a journey to the moon.

The sketchy details of his past were a blank canvas for the late 19th-century French playwright Edmond Rostand, who mythologised aspects of Cyrano’s life for his own ends.  Immortalising Cyrano on stage, Rostand created a character whose heroism and generosity have resonated with audiences since the play’s premiere in 1897.  Cyrano believes himself to be ugly and ridiculous on account of his large nose, and fears that in spite of his talent for romantic poetry he will never be able to win the heart of the woman he loves.  Enter the good-looking but inarticulate Christian de Neuvillette, and together they devise the perfect hero whose identity is only revealed at the end of the play.

Bridget Kendall explores the intersection between the real Cyrano and his fictional counterpart with Dr Clémence Caritté, who’s written extensively on Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac; Professor Isabelle Moreau from the University of Lyon, co-editor of Seventeenth Century Fiction: Text and Transmission; and Professor John Rodden who lectures in European history at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

(Main Image:  Cyrano de Bergerac by the Comédie-Française, featuring Michel Vuillermoz as Cyrano,  Paris, May, 2006.  Photo credit:  Raphael Gaillarde / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Cyrano de Bergerac: Big-nosed hero

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service