{"title":"Edmond Rostand","role":"Playwright","image":"","lede":null,"content":"<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><strong>EDMOND ROSTAND (Playwright)<\/strong>, who was born Apr. 1, 1868 and died Dec. 2, 1918, was a French dramatist whose plays represent the final flowering of the 19th-century romantic tradition. His greatest work,<em> Cyrano de Bergerac <\/em>(1897; Eng. trans., 1898), was a dazzling popular success and remains a worldwide favorite to this day. Its hero, marred by an enormous nose, rises heroically above his bodily defect in scenes of unparalleled verve, wit, and pathos. One of Rostand's earlier works, <em>The Romancers <\/em>(1894; Eng. trans., 1899), has been adapted as the highly successful musical comedy <em>The Fantasticks.<\/em> His other plays include <em>L'Aiglon<\/em> (The Eaglet, 1900), a sentimental account of the life of Napoleon I's ill-starred son, and <em>Chantecler<\/em> (1910), in which all the characters are animals. In 1910, Rostand became the youngest writer to be elected to the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise. He died a victim of the widespread influenza epidemic of 1918.<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->","website":"","alt":""}