When I teach Edmond Rostand's
Cyrano de Bergerac, I end up wanting to write lots of letters. I also always assign the following topics--or roughly similar ones--for in-class or take-home writing:
Is Roxane really worth the trouble?
Is Cyrano just a fool? (Use evidence from all parts of the play to support your position.)
Does the Comte de Guiche have any redeeming qualities? And if so, are they enough, really, to redeem him?
Stuff like that.
The first is a particular favorite, and those of you who know the play understand that in the beginning, Roxane, aside from her beauty and liveliness, doesn't seem to merit such devotion from Cyrano and Christian. In fact, in the second and third acts, she can seem petty and hurtful. And yet if you keep reading . . . .
I also like to direct students to the balcony scene as a crescendo in the arc of the play. What really happens amidst all those words back and forth? Is it all just the "pretty nothings that are everything," as Roxane claims earlier, or is there something of greater depth at work?
Oh, Roxane--
I've also found the following quotation helpful in considering the overall arc of the play:
"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."
--Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
--a handful of thoughts at the end of a long day.
