Abstract
As a refined humanist Edmond Rostand challenged the aesthetic and cultural trends of his time. At the turn of the century! drama in Prance was at the end of the realistic movement and especially of its naturalistic phase. The growth from realism to naturalism had not produced intellectual men like Ibsen and Strindberg, but rather a group of playwrights of only comparative strength who wrote mainly of highly sophisticated and irresponsible people. In the late nineties the realistic theatre had become very dull, wallowing in the pessimistic problem plays of the eternal triangle, of marital problems, and divorce courts. Into the midst of such an aesthetic and cultural milieu the author of Cyrano de Bergerac came with a freshness and enthusiasm sorely needed by the theatre and greatly appreciated by the public.