A century after it was first performed, Cyrano de Bergerac requires translation not just of language but also of the play's ideas about love. Edmond Rostand's post-romantic verse drama was always anachronistic, so it is no wonder the author harked back, both in form and content, to the first half of the 17th century. This was the period in which, thanks to the creation of organisations such as the Academie francaise, French literature was provided with a series of strict rules to which all writers were expected to conform. And during the same era, theories of love originally proposed by the troubadours of the 12th century were also given their clearest expression. What emerged at this time, and remained central to French theatre as late as Cyrano de Bergerac, was an exploration of the conflict between love and honour. With extraordinary frequency, the protagonist must choose between passion and idealism, with the latter customarily winning. In Corneille's Polyeucte, for example, written during the period in which Cyrano is set, the heroine Pauline, despite being drawn to her lover, eventually chooses to follow her Christian beliefs - and her husband - to martyrdom.
The seeming perversity of Cyrano, preferring to conceal his love for Roxanne while promoting that of another man, therefore arises from a long and - at least in the eyes of Rostand's original audience - honourable tradition. According to this cherished belief, unconsummated, unrequited, even unexpressed love offers the greatest dignity. By comparison, succumbing to passion is bestial and ultimately often unsatisfactory.
There is a second source for Rostand's ideas also in one of Charles Perrault's late 17th century fairy stories, La Belle et la Bete. The inspiration for so much 19th century romantic fiction, Belle proposes that a beautiful sensibility can lie behind even the ugliest features. So Cyrano, although convinced he can never be loved by any woman because of his large nose, proves himself to be far more worthy of devotion than his rival, the handsome Christian. Just like Perrault's beast, he has to be close to death before the object of his silent devotion finally awakens to what she has never before seen clearly. At a time when love and physical passion are noisily and persistently expressed, Rostand's delicate proposal in favour of restraint now looks distinctly if charmingly old-fashioned.