SOURCE: "The First Symbolists," in Modern Drama, translated by Karin Elliott, Basil Blackwell, 1952, pp. 152-78.

In the following essay, Lamm appraises Rostand's major plays.

While Maeterlinck and Claudel had difficulty in gaining stage success with their plays another writer of the same school, but of incomparably lower calibre, Edmond Rostand, succeeded in winning the heart of the great public. Cyrano de Bergerac was the theatrical triumph of the century, quantitatively perhaps the greatest that the history of the theatre has ever known. For some years the young author was universally acclaimed as the king of modern drama. This enthusiasm, however, began to wane even during his lifetime, and in histories of literature Rostand is now dismissed with a lack of appreciation which is as unjustified as the earlier excessive praise.

Rostand was an exact contemporary of Claudel but he came from the south, like his master Victor Hugo...