Cyrano de Bergerac

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Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac [ saviˈnjɛ̃ siʀaˈno dəbɛʀʒəˈʀak ], actually Hector Savinien de Cyrano (born March 6, 1619 in Paris , † July 28, 1655 in Sannois , Val d'Oise ), was a forerunner of the Enlightenment and French writer who was two fantastic He wrote novels about journeys to the inhabitants of the moon and the sun, but they only appeared after his death and are considered forerunners of science fiction .

Cyrano de Bergerac

Life

Cyrano - as he is usually simply called in literary stories - is best known today as a novelist drama or film character. The real importance of this author, who worked in many genres, lies in the fact that he can be considered one of the inventors of the science fiction novel and a forerunner of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.

He came from an originally bourgeois family, but his grandfather, the Parisian sea fish merchant Savinien Cyrano, bought the noble office of royal notary and secretary in 1571 and acquired two estates not far from the capital in 1582, including one that belonged to a noble family who had immigrated from the southwest. de Bergerac ”. Cyrano's father, Abel de Cyrano, held a higher office at the Paris Supreme Court, the Parlement , and when he married he traded under the noble title écuyer (actually "squire"). Cyrano himself regarded himself unreservedly as aristocratic and usually drew “(de) Bergerac”.

He spent his childhood as the fourth son of his parents, apparently largely separated from them, partly on one of the estates and partly with a village pastor who gave him lessons. He later attended the Jansenist- oriented Collège de Beauvais in Paris. Apparently he was not a docile and good student. He later caricatured the director of the college, a well-respected scholar, in a comedy.

After finishing school in 1638, he initially led a dandy life. Apparently, however, the family's financial situation deteriorated around the same time, as his father had already sold the goods in 1636. Cyrano therefore hired himself from 1638 in a guard regiment, which mainly consisted of Gascognic cadets , so that he himself - wrongly - was often regarded as a gascogner . He made a name for himself among his comrades as a warrior and duelist, but he was also known as a writer of verses.

In 1639 and 1640 he took part with his regiment in the Franco-Spanish war that was taking place in northwestern France at that time. He was wounded twice, then resigned from military service and returned to Paris.

From 1641 onwards he heard the lectures of the natural philosopher and researcher Pierre Gassendi here . Through him he got to know the theories of the ancient natural philosophers, but also the heliocentric worldview according to Copernicus , Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei . In addition, he dealt with the writings of the philosopher René Descartes as well as religious-critical freethinking authors. The alchemy employed him.

On the side he took dance and fencing lessons and moved in circles of young aristocrats, where a certain free spirit was cultivated. He also increasingly made contact with writers, including the well-known authors Paul Scarron and Tristan L'Hermite and the less well-known Charles d'Assoucy.

His financial situation was precarious during these years because his father could not or would not support him. Apparently his health was not good either, perhaps due to a syphilis infection. He quickly got through the small inheritance that fell to him when his father died in 1648.

During the politically confused time of the Fronde (1648–1652) Cyrano was initially on the side of the insurgent people of Paris and the Paris parliament, i. H. the opponent of the ruling Queen Mother Anna of Austria and her unloved minister, Cardinal Jules Mazarin . Against this he wrote the satirical poem Le Ministre d'État flambé , as well as some so-called Mazarinaden, d. H. Anti-Mazarin pamphlets (which, following the pattern of Scarron's Mazarinade , had developed into a genre of its own).

In 1651, however, after the Fronde had turned into a revolt of the high nobility, Cyrano changed sides, broke with his previous friends, especially Scarron and D'Assoucy, and wrote a Lettre contre les Frondeurs in which he defended Mazarin's absolutist policy.

In 1650 at the latest he began the two-part novel that was to become his main work, L'autre monde ("The Other World"). Here a first-person narrator reports on his alleged trip to the moon and the sun and of his experiences and conversations with their residents (e.g. the humorous alienated biblical figures of the prophet Elijah and the patriarch Enoch , which he meets on the moon). Here Cyrano puts philosophical, natural history, religious and socio-political thoughts in the mouths of the inhabitants of the moon and the sun, which were forbidden to express for a Frenchman at the time.

In 1652 he entered the service of the duke and high military officer Louis d'Arpajon as a kind of noble domestics . To him he dedicated his tragedy La Mort d'Agrippine ("The Death of Agrippina"), printed in 1654 , a historical play in the style of Pierre Corneille , into which he incorporated tirades critical of religion, which caused great offense when it was performed at the end of 1653.

In 1654 he had a collective edition of smaller works written by then appear, including above all the prose comedy Le Pédant joué (“The Deceived Pedant”), from which Molière drew for his penultimate play, Les fourberies de Scapin , and the Lettres sur diverse subjects, literary, mostly satirical letters on various topics, in which he is a. a. open biblical and church criticism allowed.

In the same year 1654 - his report of the journey to the moon was finished, that of the journey to the sun was still unfinished - he suffered a tragic accident, which, however, was interpreted by some as an assassination attempt: under unexplained circumstances, a beam fell on his head in the city palace of his protector. He was first cared for in Paris by his sister Catherine, a nun, and later taken in by a cousin in Sannois . There he died a good year after the accident (whether from its consequences or from an illness is not known) at the age of only 36. He received a church funeral, so he had come to terms with the church before his death. He rests in the Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church of Sannois.

His last work, the treatise Traité de physique , whose attribution is not entirely certain, did not get beyond the initial stage.

The two utopian novels were published in 1657 and 1662 posthumously under the title Les États et Empires de la Lune ("The States and Empires of the Moon") and Les États et Empires du Soleil ("The States and Empires of the Sun") by Henri Lebret , a childhood friend, published. In doing so, he deleted various overly offensive passages, which in the modern editions are, however, restituted from the surviving manuscripts. Most of the information known about Cyranos comes from Lebret's foreword. The greeting of the moon dwellers "Songez à librement vivre" ("Be careful, live free!") Is known to this day and testifies to Cyrano de Bergerac's free-thinking attitude.

Afterlife

His current fame is based on his own works as well as on the romantic-comedic verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) by Edmond Rostand , which was filmed several times ( The Last Musketeer and Cyrano von Bergerac (1990) in the lead role with Gerard Depardieu ).

Franco Alfano's opera Cyrano de Bergerac (1936) based on Rostand's drama was re-performed by the Metropolitan Opera , New York , after its rediscovery at the Kiel Opera and the Montpellier Opéra in 2005 , with Plácido Domingo in the title role. Other opera versions are by Walter Damrosch ( Cyrano , 1913) and Jack Beeson ( Cyrano , 1994).

The lunar crater Cyrano and the asteroid (3582) Cyrano are named after him.

Works

  • La mort d'Agrippine (Agrippina) 1654 (tragedy in verse)
  • Le pédant joué (The Tricked Pedant) 1654, a comedy that mocks a teacher who is in love with a younger woman but is thwarted (prose)
  • Lettres sur divers sujets 1654 (literary letters according to the fashion of the time)
  • Les États et Empires de la Lune posthumously 1657 (novel)
  • Les États et Empires du Soleil posthumously 1662 (fragment of a novel)

  • Copper engraving (1657) for L'histoire comique contenant les états et empires de la lune

  • Copper engraving (1662) for L'histoire comique contenant les états et empires du soleil

German editions

  • Lunar states and empires of the sun . G. Müller, Munich 1913.
  • The journey to the lunar states and empires of the sun . Heyne, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-453-31220-1 .
  • The trip to the moon . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-458-19125-9 .
  • Heart stitches. The letters of Cyrano de Bergerac . Edited and translated by Wolfgang Tschöke. Dtv, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-20474-5 .
  • The journey to the moon and the sun . Edited and translated by Wolfgang Tschöke. Eichborn, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-8218-0732-6 .

Literary adaptations

Musicals

literature

Web links

Commons : Cyrano de Bergerac  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Herrmann : The long nose . In: The time . January 25, 1991 ( zeit.de [accessed March 6, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Cyrano in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
personal data
SURNAME Bergerac, Cyrano de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hector-Savinien de Cyrano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1619
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1655
Place of death Paris