#Edmund Rostand

[travsd]

The Romantic Edmund Rostand

There’s something highly appropriate about Edmond Rostand (1868-1918), having been born of an April Fool’s Day, given the holiday’s history in his native country and Rostand’s revival of the kind of Romanticism we associate with Victor Hugo. Rostand has always seemed a bit of a unicorn, galloping against the prevailing traffic in the time of Antoine, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, et al. One is apt to…

[licncourt]

louis' bookshelf: the begin again reading list

I forgot to post this after I finished the fic, but these are the sources for all the thematically relevant references in Begin Again. I know my writing style can be polarizing, but I was so flattered and excited by the enthusiasm for my love of intertextuality, so these are the pieces of writing that inspired me. They're listed in order of appearance!

-

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Homer's Iliad

The Unabridged Journals by Sylvia Plath

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

Almagest by Claudius Ptolemy

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Vergil's Aeneid

Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar

Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius

Bucolic II by Vergil

Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

The Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

Dante's Divine Comedy

The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Othello by William Shakespeare

Gray's Anatomy by Henry Gray

A Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

God is Dead by Friedrich Nietzsche

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Candide by Voltaire

Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

De Clementia by Seneca the Younger

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

Life Without Principle by Henry David Thoreau

Two Treatises of Government by John Locke

The Spirit of the Laws by Baron de Montesquieu

Bello Civili by Julius Caesar

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Lenore by Edgar Allan Poe

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

[poemcitymix]

THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD by David Kirby

“Everyone’s good in a crisis,” says my brother-in-law’s wife to my brother-in-law, who seems less than pleased to have this information, he having just said, “I’m good in a crisis” in response to her assertion that he’s not really good at anything:

picking up after himself, taking turns with the kids, cleaning the kitchen after a big meal that she has shopped for and prepared. Bravado, the marvelous, the startling: these aren’t as impressive as that which is steady, consistent,

reliable. Not Faustus but Penelope. Jack Gilbert says as much in his poem “The Abnormal is Not Courage,” which describes a 1939 Polish cavalry charge against German tanks, their sabers flashing as cannon fire cuts them to pieces,

although the best thing about this story is that it never happened: the cavalry came across lightly-armed German infantry and dispersed them, though the Poles themselves were routed when German reinforcements

arrived and fired on them with machine guns. The tanks appeared only after the battle was over, as did journalists who saw the tanks and the dead men and the horses and drew the wrong conclusion, although

in a way the cavalry charge actually worked, since it halted the German advance long enough for a Polish battalion of foot soldiers to retreat to safety. But isn’t the story better the way Gilbert tells it? Who wants to hear

about a mistake? If you’re going to tell a story, make it a good one. Be patient. When 18-year-old John James Audubon came to America, he found some Eastern Phoebes nesting in a cave and, having heard

that they returned to the same spot to nest every year, he decided to test that idea, so for days he sat in the cave with them and read a book until they were used to him and let him tie string to their legs to identify them,

and, sure enough, the next year the same birds were back. Don’t try too hard, in other words. “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to,” says Flaubert, “when we long to move the stars

to pity.” Really? The stars don’t need us. The stars are fine. It’s the bears who need dance music. On your feet, Smokey! Here’s one you’ll like— I wrote it just for you. Besides, every hundredth time

we sit down to write a bear song, we write one that leaves the stars shaking with sorrow, their tears raining down in torrents and then evaporating in the atmosphere before they reach us. Beauty can’t be targeted—that was

Ezra Pound’s mistake, says Brodsky, a surprising one for somebody who lived in Italy so long. Beauty is a by-product. Beauty is the stepchild of doing one’s job, as when Cyrano de Bergerac suffered a neck wound in battle and decided

to study astronomy while he recovered, eventually writing a satirical novel about a voyage to the moon, thus influencing future science fiction writers but also being discovered three hundred and fifty years later by the Edmond Rostand

who made him famous in a play called Cyrano de Bergerac in which his love for the beautiful Roxane is thwarted because Rostand gave him a large and unsightly nose, an assertion as exaggerated as the false Polish cavalry charge

and thus, like that invention, a key element in turning a good story into a great one. Gordon Lightfoot’s hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was riddled with so many inaccuracies that the singer-songwriter

agonized over his sending the doomed freighter to Cleveland, for example, when it was really headed for Zug Island when it sank on Lake Superior in 1975, and the families of the twenty-nine men who perished in the wreck

met to mourn in the Mariners’ Church of Detroit and not, in Lightfoot’s re-phrasing, the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral, but his producer and long-time friend Lenny Waronker told him not to worry about

the facts, to play to his artistic strengths and “just tell a story.” The Poles weren’t stupid. At the time of the 1939 cavalry charge, their cavalry was already being organized into motorized brigades.

After all, who won the war? Audubon’s tying strings onto the legs of the Eastern Phoebes is the first known incident of banding birds. Cyrano didn’t have a big nose, but Rostand gave him one.

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” charted at #1, and before long shipping regulations were changed to include survival suits, positioning systems, depth finders, increased freeboard, more frequent inspection of vessels.

None of this would have happened if Gordon Lightfoot had made sure all his facts were correct and the song had turned out to be a dud. Writing isn’t hard. You just have to be patient. You just have to get everything right.

[smithlibrary]

Read More 2024 The Play's the Thing

A written play or drama.

Classics Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Non-Fiction Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Hamlet by William Shakespeare Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett The Seagull by Anton Chekhov The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor Our Town by Thornton Wilder Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Caligula and Three Other Plays by Albert Camus The Cid by Pierre Corneille Medea and Other Plays by Euripides

Young Adult Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne

[ladailymirror]

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: John Decker – Painter to the Stars

Chester Conklin by John Decker, courtesy of Mary Mallory. Note: This is an encore post from 2013. “To sing, to laugh, to dream, to walk in my own way and be alone…” A recording of John Decker’s voice recited this phrase and the other words of Edmund Rostand’s “No Thank You” speech from “Cyrano de Bergerac” at his own Memorial Service on June 10, 1947. The phrase succinctly described how the…

[ogradyfilm]

Cyrano: All the Words I Don’t Have

[The following essay contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Early on in Cyrano, Joe Wright’s delightfully maximalist musical adaptation of Edmund Rostand’s classic play, Christian—the dullest point of the story’s convoluted love triangle—laments (through song, naturally) his utter inability to articulate his feelings:

I’d give anything for someone to say / All the words I don’t have and I can’t put together / I’d give anything for someone to say to her / That she’s all I can think about / And I can’t live without her.

His distress is hardly unjustified: in the movie’s melodramatic setting, words are everything. Indeed, Roxanne, the object of Christian’s affections, somewhat foolishly correlates eloquence with outward beauty: “He is beautiful; he must therefore express himself beautifully.” Hers is the attitude of the archetypal “hopeless romantic”; from her perspective, the simple act of exchanging love letters is inherently intimate, sensual, and even outright erotic—in one particularly memorable scene, she literally writhes in borderline orgasmic euphoria as she reads her admirer’s poetry aloud, caressing her trembling body with the crumpled paper.

Roxanne’s beliefs are not totally naïve, however. For a woman of her relatively humble socioeconomic status, words represent some modicum of power—her only weapon against those that would prey upon her. When the amorous and arrogant Duke de Guiche attempts to force the issue of their “engagement,” for example, she manages to indirectly reject his advances with a few tactfully phrased lies and thinly veiled insults. Her wit is her sword, and she desires a partner that can match her skill in verbal fencing.

Thus, Christian’s metaphorical “muteness” is as great a disadvantage as his eponymous rival’s physical deformity; consequently, they must combine their respective talents in order to successfully woo this fair but uncompromising maiden:

My words upon your lips. I shall make you romantic, while you shall make me… handsome.

Of course, this deception ultimately renders their mutual “victory” hollow; Cyrano’s sentiments do not belong to Christian any more than Christian’s face belongs to Cyrano:

She told me that she loves me for my soul; you are my soul!

The film’s entire conflict, in fact, revolves around the most essential words of all: those that remain unspoken. Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett subtly imply that each of their characters is painfully aware of the other’s silent pining; both are merely too afraid to acknowledge their obvious mutual attraction, lest they tarnish the platonic relationship that they’ve already built.

And their stubborn refusal to communicate honestly—to confront the undeniable truth—inevitably culminates in tragedy.

[pomogranategf]

new cyrano movie w peter dinklage directed by joe wright completely clowned me by being a musical

[the-booted-kat]

Books of May

[caroleditosti]

'Cyrano' Starring The Inestimable Peter Dinklage in a Musical Turn

‘Cyrano’ Starring The Inestimable Peter Dinklage in a Musical Turn

Scott Stangland, Peter Dinklage and Christopher Gurr in ‘Cyrano,’ a production from The New Group, currently in a limited Off-Broadway engagement through December 22 at the Daryl Roth Theatre (Monique Carboni)

The New Group’s presentation of Cyrano in a musical adaptation by Erica Schmidt of the iconic Cyrano de Bergeracby Edmund Rostand really soars with the entrance of Peter Dinklage as Cyrano…

[notbecauseofvictories]

I remember a while back you used to post about Cyrano de Bergerac, and I thought you should know: they're making a Cyrano movie. The trailer's currently out if you're curious.

I am aware of the trailer! Mostly because I have now chickened out of watching it at least 4 times.

The thing is, I fell in love with Cyrano de Bergerac reading a translation of Edmund Rostand on a html website circa 2003, and then again watching a grainy stream of the 1950 film (Jose Ferrer! to date the only Cyrano that exists) not to mention stumbling a 2002 musical whose soundtrack I just happened to grab during a swap back in my livejournal days. My idea of Cyrano (the character, the play) is so decided that I don't know if I have room for anything more.

And so, I keep seeing the trailer, thinking "well...should I?" and then scrolling past really quickly.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

The AUDACITY of Edmund Rostand to write potentially the most devastating tragic romantic concept in the history of fiction and dump it on us like we could handle it

[sublimegiverpanda]

Les plus beaux yeux pour moi sont des yeux pleins de larmes. Edmund Rostand ✍️

Alphonse Mucha 🖌️

[quicktothebatjalopy]

Re-reading my favorite translation of Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (Brian Hooker’s verse translation is *chef’s kiss*) and this passage suddenly struck me as VERY Wei Wuxian

[sevfanfic]

Quick note! I forgot to mention that “Venus in her shell was never so lovely, and Diana in the forest never so graceful as my Lady when she strides through Paris” is a quote from a French play called Cryano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand 

Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy the latest update :)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Rock-a-Doodle (1991)

Partially animated, partially featuring live-actors, Don Bluth directs Rock-a-Doodle, loosely based on the Edmond Rostand comedy Chantecler. This is a movie for babies. They won't have seen everything this story does but better elsewhere. Adults will find it tedious, recognize the bad writing, and be annoyed by the characters. It made me a little mad to sit through its 74-minute running time.

Chanticleer (voiced by Glen Campbell) is a rooster whose croak brings the sun up in the morning. One day, the sun begins to rise without his crowing. As the barnyard animals mock the bird for his delusions of grandeur, he leaves his home for the big city. Actually, this was all part of a scheme by the evil Grand Duke (voiced by Christopher Plummer), a magical owl that despises daylight. In reality, Chanticleer's crow DOES bring up the sun and now that he's left his post, daylight will never come again. When young Edmund (Toby Scott Ganger) is turned into a kitten by the Grand Duke and drawn into the storybook he's reading, the “boy” and a slew of barnyard animals go on a quest to bring back their friend and save the world from the eternal darkness.

I’m not kidding when I say this movie makes me angry. The writing is sloppy, the direction is awful and the tone so sugary-sweet it gives you a toothache… but you can’t quite dismiss Rock-a-Doodle because of the animation. What a waste. All that talent by the animators, all of that money poured into a story that is nothing but a glorified babysitter for the littlest of children. That's what this is, with the live-action segments bookending the story, the cute little kitten protagonist, the strict distinction between real life - which is "safe" and the fictional world, which is filled with danger - and the narration, whose job is to oversimplify and explain every single action before it actually happens.

There’s nothing to this story, just an excuse to string you along until the clock runs out with a few pauses here and there to feature unmemorable songs. The musical numbers make Rock-a-Doodle scream “Disney Wannabee” in the worst ways. It becomes so desperate for tunes to pad out its running time the soundtrack even resorts to having some of the evil owls singing to Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor. How lazy can you get?

Considering its intended audience, maybe I should give the picture some mercy but I refuse. While the movements are fluid and colors bright, nothing about this tale will enrich or stimulate those who watch it in any way. It doesn’t even contain original characters or anything memorable for the kiddies; there are too many barnyard animals for any of them to get more than a couple of quirks and the kid is bland. Rewatching it as an adult you'd be embarrassed to hear that you liked Rock-a-Doodle growing up. (On VHS, January 19, 2015)

[gothcoraline]

"You can call it a lie, but a lie is a sort of myth, and a myth is a sort of truth"

-Edmund Rostand, Cyrano De Bergerac