Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien

Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien (sävēnyăN` sēränō` də bĕrzhəräk`), 1619–55, French novelist. Satirizing the customs and beliefs of his time, he wrote two fantastic romances about visits to the moon and sun—L' Autre Monde; ou, Les Estats et empires de la lune (1657) and Les Estats et empires du soleil (1662); these usually appear together, as in the translation by Richard Aldington, Voyages to the Moon and the Sun (new ed. 1962). Cyrano's swaggering personality, evinced by the many duels he fought over insults to his unusually large nose, was romanticized by Edmond Rostand in the verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).

Bibliography

See study by E. Harth (1970).

---

Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien

Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, engraving after a painting.

(credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born March 6, 1619, Paris, France—died July 28, 1655, Paris) French satirist and dramatist. He was a soldier until 1641 and studied under the philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). He wrote plays as well as fantastical works combining science-fantasy and political satire that inspired such later writers as Jonathan Swift. He became the basis of many romantic legends, including Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), in which he is portrayed as a gallant and brilliant but shy and ugly lover, with a remarkably large nose (which in fact he had).