Plays of Edmond Rostand, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

For twenty-five years, till in December, 1918, he himself entered into light perpetual, Edmond Rostand was the poet of light, from the A pril starlight of Romantics to the full summer sunshine of Chanticleer. Because his genius is true to the genius of his people, and because the French language is a most lucid medium, his plays have suffered little from misinterpretation. Chanticleer is the one exception. Readers and spectators have been so dazzled by its rays, they have been, for the most part, unable to see the sun. If Kipling had written a play called The Lion, and its scene were laid in his own home county of England, people would, I think, have inferred a patriotic meaning. Yet when Rostand, having written Cyrano of Bergerac and The Eaglet, completed the triology with Chanticleer, the critics, heedless of the fact that the Cock is the emblem ofF rance, acclaimed it as a society satire, and disregarded its larger significance as a patriotic parable. The readers enjoyment of the play will be enhanced by careful observation of the lines that introduce the leading characters. Our attention is directed toT he Old Hen in theB asket as that ancient France that is the mother ofF rance, the wise old mother whose one concern is the growth of her splendid Cock: AG ascon Hen, Pau is her native place.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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