Unit 4 The Nightingale and the Rose

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Unit 4 The Nightingale and the Rose
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• ????????????????????????????????Oscar Wilde
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Unit 4  The Nightingale and the Rose

• I.                  Background Knowledge
• About the author
• Oscar Wildes early school years

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• In 1871, Oscar was awarded a Royal School
  Scholarship to Trinity College in Dublin. Again,
  he did particularly well in Classics, earning
  first in his examinations in 1872 and earning the
  highest honor the College could bestow on an
  undergraduate - a Foundation Scholarship.
• In 1874, Oscar crowned his successes at Trinity
  with two final achievements.  He won the
  College's Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek and was
  awarded a scholarship to Magdalen College,
  Oxford.

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• 1874-1878, He had a brilliant career at Oxford,
  where  he won the Prize for English verse for a
  poem. Even before he left the University in 1878
  Wilde had become known as one of the most
  affected of the professors of the aesthetic
  craze, and for several years it was as the
  typical aesthete that he kept himself before the
  notice of the public.

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Oscar Wildes works

• Poems  1881
• The Happy Prince And Other Tales      1888
• Dorian Gray         1890
• The House Of Pomegranates        1891
• The Ballad of Reading Goal  1898

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• Plays   
•       Lady Windermere's Fan         1892.
•        A Woman of No Importance      1893.
•        An Ideal Husband 1895
•        The Importance of Being Earnest  1895

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Criticism

• a man of far greater originality and power of
  mind than many of the apostles of aestheticism
  undoubted talents in many directions as a typical
  aesthete that he kept himself before the notice
  of the public a poet of graceful diction
  playwright of skill and subtle humor
• ? a dramatist whose plays had all the
  characteristics of his conversations
• ?   All these pieces had the same qualities--a
  paradoxical humour and a perverted outlook on
  life being the most prominent. They were packed
  with witty sayings, and the author's cleverness
  gave him at once a position in the dramatic world

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Oscar Wildes belief  Art for arts sake

• The only purpose of the artist is art, not
  religion, or science, or interest. He who paints
  or writes only for financial return or to
  propagandize political and economic interests can
  only arouse feeling of disgust.

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Quotes from Oscar Wildes Works Quotes on Men

• Men become old, but they never become good.  Lady
  Windermere's Fan.
• Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed.  It is
  not fair that some men should be happier than
  others.  In Conversation.
• Men are horribly tedious when they are good
  husbands, and abominably conceited when they are
  not.  A Woman of No Importance.
• Lady Windermere ...I don't like compliments, and
  I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing
  a woman enormously when he says to her awhile
  heap of things that he doesn't mean.  Lady
  Windermere's Fan.

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Quotes on Woman

• One should never trust a woman who tells one her
  real age.  A woman who would tell one that, would
  tell one anything.  A Woman of No Importance.
• Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin
  of pretty ones.  Lady Windermere's Fan.
• Women know life too late.  That is the difference
  between men and women.  A Woman of No Importance.
  
• Women are meant to be loved, not to be
  understood.  The Sphinx Without a Secret.

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Quotes on Love

• One should always be in love. That is the reason
  one should never marry.  In Conversation.
• To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long
  romance. Phrases and Philosophies for
• the Use of the Young.
• A man can be happy with any woman as long as he
  does not love her.  The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• Young men want to be faithful and are not old
  men want to be faithless and cannot.   The
  Picture of Dorian Gray.

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II. Text Analysis Structure

• 1) Nightingale struck by the the mystery of
  love
• 2)Nightingale looking for a red rose to
  facilitate the love
• 3) Nightingale sacrificing her life for a red
  rose
• 4) Student discarding the red rose

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Genre of this story and its characteristicsFairy
tales

• - fairies play a part
•   - contain supernatural or magical elements
•   - childrens stories
•   - full of veiled comments on life

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Characteristics

• 1) personification of birds, insects, animals
  and trees
• 2) vivid, simple narration --- typical of the
  oral tradition of fairy tales
• 3)repetitive pattern

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Symbolic meanings of Red rose, Lizard
Butterfly and NightingaleSymbolic meanings

• Red rose --- true love, which needs
  constant nourishment of passions of the lovers.
    
•    Lizard --- cynic (cynical people)
•  cynic a person who sees little or no good in
  anything and who has no belief in human progress
  person who shows this by sneering and being
  contemptuous.
• Nightingale --- a truthful, devoted pursuer
  of love, who dares to sacrifice his own precious
  life
• Student --- not a true lover, ignorant of love,
  not persistent in pursuing love

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• Wildes comments in a letter to one of his
  friends(May 1888)
• The nightingale is the true lover, if there is
  one.  She, at least, is Romance, and the student
  and the girl are, like most of us, unworthy of
  Romance.  So, at least, it seems to me, but I
  like to fancy that there may be many meanings in
  the tale, for in writing it I did not start with
  an idea and clothe it in form, but began with a
  form and strove to make it beautiful enough to
  have many secrets and many answers.    

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• Other analyses
•     1) The Student's one-sided preference for
  word knowledge over emotions is clear from the
  moment he first sees the rose.  "It is so
  beautiful," he says, "that I am sure it has a
  long Latin name" . 
• The Student, the young woman, and their society
  are all one-sided psychically. They have devalued
  the "capacity to love", here symbolized by both
  the Nightingale and the rose.
•     2) The relationship of head and heart is a
  central concern of Wilde's fairytales.  Promising
  to provide the red rose "out of music by
  moonlight" and to "stain it with my own
  heart's-blood," the Nightingale asks of the
  Student only that he "will be a true lover, for
  Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is
  wise, and mightier than Power, "  But the Student
  cannot understand what the Nightingale says, "for
  he only knew the things that are written down in
  books. He has too much "head" knowledge and
  almost no "heart" knowledge.

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• 3) Wilde is right that the only lover is the
  Nightingale. The wholeness it achieves is
  symbolized by the discarded, devalued rose. In
  the end, the Student and the young woman reject
  the wholeness offered by that symbol.

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Figurative speeches used in the text

• 1)Personification  ---   give human forms or
  feelings to animals, or life    and personal
  attributes to inanimate objects, or to ideas and
  abstractions.
• ?     e.g. Time, you old gypsy man,
•               Will you not stay,
•               Put up your caravan
•            Just for one day?
• 2) Simile and metaphor
•        Simile her voice was like water bubbling
  from a silver jar.
•        as white as the foam of the sea
•        Metaphor ...and the cold crystal moon

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Writing techniques

• Climax --derived from the Greek word ladder,
  implies the progression of thought at a uniform
  or almost       uniform rate of significance or
  intensity
• e.g.        I came, I saw, I conquered.
• Some books are to be tasted, others to be
  swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
  digested.
• Anti-climax
•       --- stating ones thoughts in a descending
  order of significance or intensity, often used
  to ridicule or satire.

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• eg.    1. As a serious man, I loved Beethoven,
  Keats, and hot dogs.
•          2. For God, for America, for Yale.
•          3. You manage a business, stocks, bonds,
  people.  
•         And now you can manage your hair.

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Syntactic device

• Inversion
• yet for want of a red rose is my life made
  wretched.(for emphasis)
• Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as
  ruby was the heart.
•       She passed through the grove like a shadow
  and like a shadow she she sailed across the
  garden.
•      Night after night have I sung of him.

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• I. Language Points
• 1. jewels (gems) emeralds(???), 
  ruby(???), sapphire(???), jade(??)diamond
• plants daisy(??), rose,  oak-tree(??)daffodil
  ???                                               
             
• animals nightingale, lizard(??), butterfly
• subjects philosophy, metaphysics(????),  logic
• stringed instruments harp(??), violin

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• 2. want
• 1)the condition or quality of lacking something
  usual or necessary
•               for /from want of ????
•               The plants died for/from want of
  water.
•               stayed home for want of anything
  better to do.
• 2) pressing need ??
•               to live in want to live in
  poverty
• 3) something desired
•               in want of in need of
•               Are you in want of money?
•               Hes a person of few wants and
  needs.

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• 3. fling
• 1)  to throw violently, with force
•          Dont fling your clothes on the floor.
• 2) to move violently or quickly
•          She flung herself down on the sofa.
•          She flung back her head proudly.
• 3) to devote to
•          He flung himself into the task.

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• 4. bloom
• vi. to produce flowers, yield flowers, come into
  flower or be in flower??
•        The roses are blooming.
• blossom
• 1) vi. (of a seed  plant, esp  a tree or plant)
  to produce or yield flowers, bloom
•        The apples trees are blossoming.
• 2) vi. to develop
•        Their friendship blossomed when they found
  out how many interests they shared.

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• 5. ebb
• n. 1.The tide is on the ebb.
•             2.The financial resources have
  reached its lowest ebb.
• vi. 1) fall back from the flood stage
•           The tide will begin to ebb at 4
  oclock.
•          2) to fall away or back decline or
  recede
•           The danger of conflict is not ebbing
  there.

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• 6. linger
• vi. 1) to be slow in leaving, especially out of
  reluctance
•           The children lingered at the zoo until
  closing time.
• 2) to proceed slowly linger over ones
  work (???)
• 3) to persist Winter lingers.
• vt. to pass (a period of time) in a leisurely or
  aimless manner.
•          We lingered away the whole summer at the
  beach.

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•  7. see   
• 1)see about doing attend to, make arrangements
  for, deal with??,??
•      It is time for me to see about cooking the
  dinner.
• 2) see something out to last until the end of
  ??,??
•               Will our supplies see the winter
  out?
•               It was such a bad play we couldnt
  see out the performance and we left early.
• 3) see through sb./ sth
•            The paper is too thick to see though.
•            It was a hard time for us, but we
  managed to see it through.
• 4) see to something to attend to, take care
  of??,??
•        If I see to getting the car out, will you
  see to closing the windows?

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• 8. go
• 1) go about something to perform to do??,??
•            to go about ones business
•            Dont go about the job that way.
• 2) go after sb/sth
•            to go after a job, a girl, a prize
• 3) go against sb/sth
•            Opinion is going against us.
•         The case may go against us.
• 4) go along vi. to agree with, support
•            Well go along with you /your
  suggestion.

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• 5) go round  vi. ??,
•            There is a tune going round in my
  head.
•            If there are not enough chairs to go
  round, some people have to stand.
• 6) go back on sth
•            Dont go back on your promise.
•            Never go back on your friends.??,??
• 7) go by  vi.
•            He let the chance go by.
•            A car went by. 
•            go by sth according to, based on
•            to go by the rules/the book
• 8) go for sb/sth
•            My wife went for me because I was late
  for dinner.
•            Do you go for modern music?
•               I find this report badly done, and
  that goes for all the other work done in the
  office.

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• 9) go into to enter a profession, state of life
•            to go into business/films
• 10) go over  vi. change ones stance
•            He went over from the Peoples Party
  to the Enemys Party.
• go through sth. vt (some formalities)
•            The country has gone through too many
  wars.
•            They went through the new marriage
  service.
• 11) go under vi go bankrupt, fail
•            She has so many worries, she is sure
  to go under.

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II. In-class activity

• Discussion
• 1. The characters different attitudes toward
  love
• (1)     The Students
• (2)     The Lizards, the Butterflys and the
  Daisys
• (3)     The Nightingales
• 2. Is love better than life, as the Nightingale
  believed? Interview other students. Be prepared
  to summarize their ideas.
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Home work

• III. Exercises in the textbook.
• IV.   Assignment 
• Written work Describe how the Nightingale built
  a red rose out of music in about 150 words.
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