Cyrano de Bergerac, Precursor of the Eighteenth Century Spirit
Abstract
The seventeenth century shines out in French literature as the "century of centuries". The scene is dominated by many writers of the first magnitude: Pascal, Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Molière, Fenelon. Yet there were many other writers in this period, now more or less unknown, who might have been considered great had they not been dwarfed by the brilliance of the great geniuses of their time. Never- the less, many of these despised writers gave ideas or suggestions to those who knew how to clothe them in a form more acceptable to the world. For great literary geniuses are not necessarily entirely original. Their genius lies in their ability to take, to transform, and to adapt material, to put it into a form in which it will be of use to the world. A trial piece usually precedes the masterpiece and classic of its genre.
Subject Area
Theater|Theater History|French literature
Recommended Citation
Richardson, Isobel C, "Cyrano de Bergerac, Precursor of the Eighteenth Century Spirit" (1935). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI28404274.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI28404274
