Voie négative, vue négative : Edmond Rostand ou la communion perdue

For Edmond Rostand, dramatic writing is a medium ensuring communion between the author and the spectator, a bond questioned by Plato. This article studies how Edmond Rostand’s poetic plays illustrate the quest for the public’s understanding of the poet and how the characters thrive for their lost social recognition. His works shed light on the poet at work, each of the characters being an accomplished or budding versifier to reveal that poetry is legitimate work, which requires skills. Edmond Rostand’s poetic style deconstructs literary and social norms that have led to his contemporaries’ loss of authenticity. Misunderstood by theater goers and critics, disappointment led the playwright to improvisation and to pantomime, in which gestures could not alter the fragile and fleeting idea, making poetry easier to comprehend and bridging the gap between the author and his audience, establishing the poet as a worthy citizen again.