Cyrano de Bergerac (play)

Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac, the man for whom the play is named and upon whose life it is based
Written by	Edmond Rostand
Characters	Cyrano de Bergerac Roxane Christian De Guiche Le Bret Ragueneau
Date premiered	28 December 1897
Original language	French
Genre	Romance
Setting	France, 1640

Cyrano de Bergerac (/ˌsɪrənoʊ də ˈbɜːrʒəræk, - ˈbɛər-/ SIRR-ə-noh də BUR-zhə-rak, – BAIR-, French: [siʁano d(ə) bɛʁʒəʁak]) is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. The play is a fictionalisation following the broad outlines of Cyrano de Bergerac's life.

The entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, very close to the classical alexandrine form, but the verses sometimes lack a caesura. It is also meticulously researched, down to the names of the members of the Académie française and the dames précieuses glimpsed before the performance in the first scene.

The play has been translated and performed many times, and it is responsible for introducing the word panache into the English language.^[1] The character of Cyrano himself makes reference to "my panache" in the play. The most famous English translations are those by Brian Hooker, Anthony Burgess, and Louis Untermeyer.