An existentialist reading of Cyrano de Bergerac

An existentialist reading of Cyrano de Bergerac

Friday evening I saw Cyrano de Bergerac staged by friends of mine. « I hope that they won't ruin my favorite theater play. » - which was a real risk for an amateur company - was my only preoccupation. But obviously the perspective of writing this blogpost was lying at the back of my mind, in my unconsciousness, and suddenly, at scene 8 acte IV, I had this surprising thought: « This looks like Kierkegaard's thesis ! ». Then a whole reinterpretation of the play came to me. I would like to share it with you.

If you didn't read/see the play, I would advise you to stop reading RIGHT NOW this post, first to avoid spoiler, then to run and read this treasure of literature.

* The love triangle : a parable of Kierkegaard's conception of self

                                                                              Roxane.

Je viens te demander pardon (et c’est bien l’heure
De demander pardon, puisqu’il se peut qu’on meure !)
De t’avoir fait d’abord, dans ma frivolité,
L’insulte de t’aimer pour ta seule beauté !

Christian, avec épouvante.

Ah ! Roxane !

Roxane.

Et plus tard, mon ami, moins frivole,
— Oiseau qui saute avant tout à fait qu’il s’envole, —
Ta beauté m’arrêtant, ton âme m’entraînant,
Je t’aimais pour les deux ensemble !…

Christian.

Et maintenant ?

Roxane.

Eh bien ! toi-même enfin l’emporte sur toi-même,
Et ce n’est plus que pour ton âme que je t’aime !

Excerpt from Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand (VI, 7)

As I said, this « existentialist revelation » stroke me at scene 8 act IV. When Roxane confesses that she first loved Christian for his beauty (the finite) and now loves him for his soul (the infinite), who is actually Cyrano’s soul. Here I realized that this tragic love story could embodied the difficult synthesis of the self as presented in Kierkegaard’s work.

Cyrano would be the soul, Christian the body and thus Roxane the other.

Here, the very first step on the synthesis appears as impossible. Christian and Cyrano will never be oneself,  they will never be Roxane’s perfect lover. This vision emphasizes the fact that Despair can come from a negation, a rejection of a part of oneself. Both Cyrano and Christian want to be someone else, not entirely, but they are rejecting a part of their selves (Cyrano : his body, Christian : his soul).

This is why the relationship to the other, to Roxanne is doomed to failure. She could have loved Cyrano, she was ready to love him despite his ugliness, she was loving him for himself. But Cyrano couldn’t accept his own body, his own ugliness. That is why he lives in Despair, he was not able to reach happiness. We can also wonder whether (in this Kierkegaardian analysis) Roxane and Cyrano could have been happy together in so far as Roxane loves him despite Cyrano’s ugliness. Here again it is a denial, not a synthesis.

Hence we can interpret Cyrano de Bergerac as an illustration of the difficulty of being oneself. However, I would add, as a parenthesis, that Edmond Rostand seems to consider that the true self is the spiritual self.

* Cyrano : a Nietzsche’s preparatory man :

In an excerpt from The Gay Science ([283]), Nietzsche mentions the “preparatory men”. He describes them as men of warlike age whose “greatest enjoyment of existence” is living dangerously. This definition suits perfectly Cyrano. He is ready to fight with anyone, he lives only for honor. He has no consideration for money, glory or acknowledgement. He lives according to his free will despite social norms. Cyrano clearly is, “in greater danger, more fruitful and happier”. In Nietzsche’s opinion, we might say that Cyrano is a step closer to the Übermensch on the bridge that humanity is. (“What is great with man is that he is the bridge and not the end”, Thus Spoke Zarathustra Prologue)

What can we conclude from this analysis ? That I spent too much time worrying about this blogpost and about Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and I totally extrapolated the meaning of the play ? Might be. Or we could wonder whether there is not something universal in Nietzsche ‘s and Kierkegaard’s philosophies, something about humanity. Hence it would be normal to find some hint of it in every human work.

I would be glad to hear about your opinion of my - I admit - provocative analysis of Cyrano de Bergerac.