Cyrano de Bergerac

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1897

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Act 1Act Summaries & Analyses

Act 1 Summary: “The First Act: A Performance at the Hotel de Bourgogne”

The play begins in 1640, in a Hall of the Hotel de Bourgogne that is being used as a theater. Theater-goers enter to see the play La Clorise by Balthasar Baro. These attendees include a royal soldier and a Musketeer, who fence, and lackeys, who gamble. The audience also includes a guardsman, who tries to kiss a girl selling flowers; pages, who dance and set up to fish for wigs; and a thief who teaches students to steal. Marquises, citizens, and other vendors also enter.

Lignière introduces Christian de Neuvillette—who is joining the Guards—to Cuigy and Brissaille. These men and two marquises name other entering theater patrons for Christian’s benefit. Christian asks Lignière about a particular woman (Roxane, but he doesn’t know her name yet) who has not entered her box. Lignière gets some wine and introduces Christian to Ragueneau, a pastry chef. Ragueneau and Lignière discuss giving pastries in exchange for poetry. Others join in when they begin praising Cyrano for his wit and swordplay and discuss his large nose.

Roxane enters her box, and the men praise her beauty. Lignière tells Christian her name, her status as single, and how another married man with her (Comte de Guiche) wants her to marry one of his friends, Valvert. The thief tells Christian that men are going to attack Lignière for a song he wrote. Christian abandons challenging Valvert over courting Roxane to save Lignière.

The play begins and Montfleury begins to perform as Phedon. Cyrano enters, declaring that he has forbidden Montfleury from performing. The marquises argue with him, commanding Montfleury to continue performing. More members of the crowd argue with Cyrano, and he challenges all of them, but no one comes forward to fight him. When Cyrano commands Montfleury to disappear, he exits through a trapdoor on stage. The crowd complains, and Cyrano gives out a purse of money for ticket refunds.

A meddler approaches Cyrano, warning him about Montfleury’s patron. Cyrano draws his sword and asks why the man is staring at his nose. When the meddler is flustered, Cyrano suggests a variety of reasons why his nose would stand out. He then compares the size of his nose and the meddler’s nose, arguing that bigger is better. Cyrano strikes and kicks the man.

Valvert tries to intervene by calling Cyrano’s nose large. Cyrano replies with a variety of more clever insults, categorizing different insults as aggressive, friendly, descriptive, inquisitive, kindly, insolent, cautious, thoughtful, pedantic, familiar, eloquent, dramatic, enterprising, lyric, simple, respectful, rustic, military, and practical. These demonstrate the weakness of Valvert’s insult and intelligence. Valvert tries to insult Cyrano’s clothes, and Cyrano responds with a witty retort about his internal accessories. Cyrano then says he wishes for some exercise, so he will compose a ballade (a form of poem) while sword fighting.

The audience watches as they fence, and Cyrano uses the rhymed poetic form to describe the action as it occurs. He repeats, “Then as I end the refrain, thrust home” (41), defeating Valvert on the final repetition. The audience cheers for him, and the Musketeer D’Artagnan compliments him. After the crowd disperses, Cyrano tells Le Bret he gave away all his money. A girl selling food offers Cyrano any of her wares for free, but he accepts only a few small things (half a macaroon, a grape, and some water) and kisses the girl’s hand.

Le Bret tells Cyrano the Cardinal was in the audience, which pleases Cyrano. Then, Le Bret tells Cyrano he made many enemies, which also pleases him. Cyrano admits he hates Montfleury because he desires the same woman Cyrano desires: Roxane. Cyrano describes her and believes he cannot approach her because of his nose. Le Bret believes Cyrano could win her affections.

Roxane’s duenna approaches and tells Cyrano that Roxane wants to see him after mass the next day. They agree to meet at Ragueneau’s pastry shop. After she leaves, Cyrano falls into Le Bret’s arms, overwhelmed that Roxane knows who he is. When he starts shouting in joy, the actors ask the men to leave. On the street, they meet up with Lignière and other men. Lignière is afraid of the attack Christian was warned about, but Cyrano offers to walk him home and protect him without aid from anyone else. An audience follows. Cyrano notes that a hundred men plan to attack Lignière because he is Cyrano’s friend.

Act 1 Analysis

Act 1 establishes Cyrano’s wit as well as his love of the arts, his love for Roxane, and his fierce fighting spirit. This is contrasted with the audience’s first impressions of Christian, who is very attractive, but not eloquent and only comfortable among other men. Rostand’s play adores the theater and initially presents the audience (or reader) with a play-within-a-play: Balthasar Baro’s La Clorise (5). Unlike plays such as William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which includes a play telling the story of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by the mechanicals (a group of amateur actors whom Puck describes as rude mechanicals), the production of La Clorise is interrupted. Cyrano refuses to allow a subpar actor to perform, and his battle of wits with someone who insults his large nose becomes the main show for the audience. Cyrano’s obsession over who is fit to play a role as well as his willingness to give his entire monthly paycheck to close the play for the night illustrate the theme of Artistry Versus Commercialism. Money is never as important as beautiful art is to him.

Cyrano’s battle of wits with Valvert is contrasted with Christian’s lack of wit in this first act. When Valvert offers a weak insult, that Cyrano’s nose is “rather large” (34), Cyrano responds with a catalog, or list, of insults under different categories, such as “Kindly: Ah, do you love the little birds / So much that when they come and sing to you, / You give them this to perch on” (36). Catalogs are a common poetic device and entertain the audience, furthering ideas about artistry versus commercialism. This also introduces the contrast between The Nature of Beauty and the Mind, where Cyrano is characterized as highly intelligent but not conventionally attractive. Meanwhile, Christian is introduced as beautiful, but he says, “I have no wit. This fine manner / Of speaking and of writing nowadays— / Not for me!” (10). However, the men both share a love of Roxane because of her beauty. She is described as “Frightfully ravishing” (15), the word “frightfully” foreshadowing how her beauty will be the undoing of both men.

In the duel between Valvert and Cyrano, the latter’s wit is combined with a demonstration of his excellent swordsmanship. Cyrano easily defeats Valvert while verbally composing a poem as they fight. The poem is in the ballade form, which is described as “three stanzas of eight lines each […] And a refrain of four” (39). The poem describes Cyrano’s actions, with the memorable refrain of “Then, as I end the refrain, thrust home!” (41). Valvert, wounded, has to be carried off by his friends while Cyrano receives the applause of the crowd. Christian also demonstrates a fighting spirit, leaving the theater early to defend Lignière against his enemies. However, it is Cyrano who ends up fighting Lignière’s enemies on his own.

Act 1 is also filled with allusions, or references, to other pieces of literature as well as symbolism of the moon and the fool. The French romance of “Launcelot” (41), referenced in the aforementioned ballade, demonstrates Cyrano’s commitment to the art of courtly love. He considers love, especially Unrequited Love, to be a cause worth devoting his entire life to. Courtly love, in medieval Arthurian romances such as The Knight of the Cart (the poem that introduced Lancelot to the Arthurian canon), is considered a kind of secular religion. Act 1 also includes one of several references to Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, with a Musketeer named “D’Artagnan” (42) in the audience of the Hotel de Bourgogne’s theater. Outside of French literature, the first act references characters from classical mythology, such as Venus and Diana (48), goddesses of beauty and the hunt, respectively.

Symbols that run throughout the play—the moon and the fool—are introduced in Act 1. Cyrano calls upon the moon when demanding that the subpar actor Montfleury exit the stage: “Attend to me—full moon! / I clap my hands, three times—thus. At the third / You will eclipse yourself” (27). The moon is later described as a consistent friend of Cyrano’s despite its changing nature. It watches over him here at the beginning of the play until the end of his life in the final act. The fool, a symbol that references French court jesters, is used to describe both Cyrano and Christian throughout the play. In Act 1, Le Bret calls Cyrano a “fool” (44) for giving away all his money to close down the play.