Recommendations from our site
“The love story that is told in Cyrano, with its bittersweet, heartbreaking ending, is one of the most powerful I’ve ever encountered.” Read more...
Jenny Davidson, Literary Scholar
“It came out as the Dreyfus affair was just heating up, and it quickly became a play around which the French could unite at a time when the affair was tearing them apart. What people loved about Cyrano de Bergerac is that it seemed to display a distinctive French quality – panache. The play’s emphasis on verve and wit that overcame adversity enabled men and women of often different values to identify with particular aspects of Cyrano’s character. Cyrano asserts an aristocratic sense of noblesse that appealed to the right. At the same time, he is a remarkable swordsman and dueler, which both artistocrats and republicans endorsed in this period as a virile manner in which to settle disputes. He is also characterised by an independence of thought and a refusal to be patronised, a quality which attracted him to the left. In this, he seemed to resemble the early “intellectuals” of the affair.” Read more...
The best books on The Dreyfus Affair and the Belle Epoque
Ruth Harris, Historian
