Google Doodle is celebrating French poet Edmond Rostand; Quick Facts

Google Doodle celebrates French poet and dramatist Edmond Rostand, who is mainly associated with his 1897 work, Cyrano de Bergerac, on May 30, 2022.

Who was Edmond Rostand?

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was born on 1 April 1868 in Marseille, France, into a rich and cultured Provençal family. He is related to neo-romanticism and is known best for his 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand’s romantic plays stood out from the naturalistic theatre famous during the late 19th century. One more of Rostand’s works, Les Romanesques (1894), was adapted to the 1960 melodic comedy The Fantasticks.

Edmond Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, France. At the point when he proceeded with his studies at the Collège Stanislas in Paris from 1884 to 1886, he was viewed as the best student in French composition, history, and philosophy.

During the time of his legal studies, Edmond Rostand won the 1887 literary essay competition held by the Marseilles Academy for an essay that he had composed on Honoré d’Urfé and Guy de Maupassant.

Edmond Rostand, the son of the recognized economist Eugene Rostand, first made success in Paris at twenty years old with his vaudeville sketch ‘Le Gant Rouge”.

Rostand was elected to the French Academy at the age of 33, the youngest member at that time. After the development of Chantecler, he was raised to Commander of the Legion of Honor and received a “Great Diploma.”

On 24 August 1888, Edmond Rostand’s first play, Le Gant rough (The Red Glove), written in a collaboration with Henry Lee, was performed at the Cluny Theater, yet it didn’t meet with much achievement. Rostand likewise started to compose a collection of poetry that he published in 1890 under the title Les Musardises (Daydreams).

In 1890 Edmond Rostand married Rosemonde Gérard, to whom he dedicated Les Musardises. Rosemonde, herself a poet, was an extraordinary and agreeable influence on Rostand. Her collection of poems, Fibs, got a special mention from the Académie Française. After the wedding, in any case, Rose-monde devoted herself to her husband’s career and frequently assisted him with managing troublesome passages, lending her poetic sensibilities to his. Numerous years after Rostand’s death, Rosemonde composed a memoir-biography of her beloved husband, Edmond Rostand (1935).

The production of Edmond Rostand’s heroic comedy Cyrano de Bergerac (28 December 1897, Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin), with Benoît-Constant Coquelin in the title role, was a victory. The first production lasted for more than 300 consecutive nights.

The play was immediately translated into English, German, Russian, and other European languages. Cyrano de Bergerac had been a childhood legend of Rostand, who loved his idealism and courage. He had likewise completely researched French seventeenth-century history.

The decade of the 1890s was a time of incredible achievement, both personal and professional, for Rostand. During four years starting in 1893, he wrote and produced an unbelievable progression of dramatic works: The Romancers (1894), The Princess Far-Away (1895), The Woman of Samaria (1897), and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Edmond Rostand retired to his country estate, and in 1901 he was elected to the Academie Française, the youngest member ever inducted. Rostand published the third volume of poems, The Flight of the Marseillaise, in 1914, which has been excused by most as unredeemed sentimental enthusiasm.

Edmond Rostand most likely saw writing these poems as his duty since his health kept him from serving France in World War I. He allegedly frequently visited the trenches, notwithstanding, wanting to see the suffering and devastation, even though it bothered him enormously and added to his decrease in health.

He kept on composing plays and poetry when his health permitted, leaving his final play, The Last Night of Don Juan, incomplete at the time of his death. Rostand died of pneumonia in Paris on December 2, 1918.

At the point when Edmond Rostand died prematurely at 50 years of age, Rostand was still writing plays. “La Dernière Nuit de Don Juan” was performed posthumously in 1922. There were two incomplete and unpublished plays – Yorick and Les Petites Manies.

During the 1900s, Edmond Rostand came to live in the Villa Arnaga in Cambo-les-Bains in the French Basque Country, looking for a remedy for his pleurisy. The house is currently a heritage site and a museum of Rostand’s life and Basque architecture and crafts.

The Romancers’ one-act play is one of Edmond Rostand’s most famous plays. This play is viewed as read for study in the courses of numerous universities of the world.

Google Doodle for celebrating Edmond Rostand

On May 30, 2022, Google featured a Doodle on its homepage for celebrating Edmond Rostand.

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Edmond Rostand, a Neo-Romantic French poet, and playwright. His most renowned work was Cyrano de Bergerac, a play about a chivalrous swordsman with an oversized nose. The play’s wistful legend — plagued by a love triangle—went on to symbolize the spirit of the French. On this day in 1901, Rostand was elected to the French Academy (l’Académie Française).

Three years after Les Romanesques, Edmond Rostand produced his most beloved work, Cyrano de Bergerac, in 1897. Right up ’til now, Cyrano de Bergerac stays one of the most famous plays in France, people all around the world look for modern versions of this story.

Quick Facts about Edmond Rostand

• Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was born to a rich family in Marseille, France.
• Rostand learned at the Collège Stanislas in Paris. He generally focused on philosophy, history, and literature.
• The author’s first play, Le Gant rouge, was performed at the Cluny Theater when he was only 20 years of age.
• The play, notwithstanding, was almost inconspicuous.
• Edmond Rostand published a volume of poems (Les Musardises, 1890), which offered him the chance to compose a three-act play considered Les Romanesque’s, which was an extraordinary achievement.
• The following two plays Edmond Rostand composed, were for the star Sarah Bernhardt. The first, La Princesse Lointaine, was not extremely successful. Nonetheless, the second play, Photine in La Samaritaine (1897) became part of the star’s repertoire.
• This was a big deal, as the “the Divine Sarah,” Sarah Bernhardt is recognized as the first international star on the stage.
• Edmond Rostand’s next play, the heroic comedy Cyrano de Bergerac, was a gigantic hit. The first production lasted over 300 back-to-back nights, truth be told.
• Cyrano has been a childhood legend of Mr. Rostand, and he completely researched seventeenth Century French history.
• D’Artagnan, the protagonist of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, makes a “guest appearance” in the play Cyrano de Bergerac (Act I Scene IV).
• Edmond Rostand became the youngest writer to be elected to the Académie française in 1902.
• The house of Edmond Rostand and his wife, poet and playwright Rosemonde-Étienette Gérard, is currently a heritage site and a museum.