Rostand, Edmond

Rostand, Edmond ( 1868 – 1918 ),
French playwright, author of Les Romanesques ( 1894 ), La Princesse lointaine ( 1895 ), La Samaritaine ( 1897 ), L'Aiglon ( 1900 , based on the life of Napoleon's son), and Chantecler ( 1910 ). The poetic drama Cyrano de Bergerac ( 1897 ), his most popular and successful work, revives in romantic guise the 17th-cent. soldier and duellist Cyrano . It has been translated into Glaswegian demotic by E. Morgan ( 1992 ), and was successfully filmed ( 1990 ) with Gérard Depardieu in the title role, with English subtitles rendered into rhyming verse by A. Burgess .