SOURCE: "Cyrano de Bergerac: Mythopoeia Triumphant," in Cyrano de Bergerac, University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1995, pp. 21-47.

In the following essay, Freeman considers Cyrano de Bergerac "the perfect vehicle for one of the most comprehensive, polyvalent pieces of myth-making in nineteenth-century French literature."

The rapturous reception that was granted to Cyrano de Bergerac by its first-night audience can be accounted for by the enormity of the conception of the play. In his three previous full-length plays, Rostand had cast around, with only moderate success … , to develop a style and find a subject that suited him. Now, in moving from Jesus Christ [in La Samaritaine] to the infinitely less austere figure of Cyrano de Bergerac, whose Entretiens pointus have been called by Jacques Prévot 'une mise en question ludique du langage conventionnel', Rostand can give full rein to his inclination to be linguistically audacious, to create...