Unit 4 The Nightingale
and the Rose
• 教学目的：通过《夜莺与玫瑰》使学生对
神话故事中的爱情展开讨论并理解作者
Oscar Wilde 透过表面的神话故事所隐含的
对人生的评论。
• 教学内容： 作者及背景知识介绍；
文章结构及写作风格、技巧赏析；
掌握重点词汇及完成练习；
• 教学重点：识别关键词汇及分析理解难句。
• 教学方法: 讲授、问答、讨论、模仿、练习、
作业等。
Unit 4 The Nightingale and the
Rose
I.
Background Knowledge
About the author:
Oscar Wilde’s early school years
• 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.
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.
Oscar Wilde’s works
Poems 1881
The Happy Prince And Other Tales
1888
Dorian Gray
1890
The House Of Pomegranates
1891
The Ballad of Reading Goal 1898
Plays:
Lady Windermere's Fan
1892.
A Woman of No Importance
1893.
An Ideal Husband 1895
The Importance of Being Earnest 1895
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
Oscar Wilde’s belief
Art for art’s 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.
Quotes from Oscar Wilde’s 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.
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.
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.
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
Genre of this story and its characteristics:
Fairy tales
- fairies play a part
- contain supernatural or magical elements
- children’s stories
- full of veiled comments on life
Characteristics:
• 1) personification of birds, insects,
animals and trees
• 2) vivid, simple narration --- typical of the
oral tradition of fairy tales
• 3)repetitive pattern
Symbolic meanings of “Red rose”, “Lizard” “Butterfly”
and “Nightingale”:
Symbolic 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
Wilde’s 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.
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.
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.
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
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 one’s thoughts in a descending order of
significance or intensity, often used to ridicule or satire.
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.
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.
I. Language Points
1. jewels (gems): emeralds（绿宝石）, ruby（红
宝石）, sapphire（蓝宝石）, jade（翡翠）
diamond
plants: daisy（雏菊）, rose, oak-tree（橡树）
daffodil 水仙
花
animals: nightingale, lizard（蜥蜴）, butterfly
subjects: philosophy, metaphysics（形而上
学）, logic
stringed instruments: harp（竖琴）, violin
2. want:
1)the condition or quality of lacking something usual or
necessary
for /from want of 由于缺少
The plants died for/from want of water.
stayed home for want of anything better to do.
2) pressing need; 贫困
to live in want = to live in poverty
3) something desired:
in want of = in need of
Are you in want of money?
He’s a person of few wants and needs.
3. fling
1) to throw violently, with force
Don’t 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.
4. bloom
vi. to produce flowers, yield flowers, come
into flower or be in flower开花
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.
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 o’clock.
2) to fall away or back; decline or recede
The danger of conflict is not ebbing there.
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 one’s work
(磨洋工）
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.
7. see
1）see about doing: attend to, make arrangements for,
deal with安排，处理
It is time for me to see about cooking the dinner.
2) see something out: to last until the end of 熬过，度过
Will our supplies see the winter out?
It was such a bad play we couldn’t 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负责，留意
If I see to getting the car out, will you see to closing the
windows?
8. go
1) go about something: to perform to do从事，着手
to go about one’s business
Don’t 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
We’ll go along with you /your suggestion.
5) go round vi. 萦绕，
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
Don’t go back on your promise.
Never go back on your friends.背叛，出卖
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.
9) go into: to enter a profession, state of life
to go into business/films
10) go over vi.= change one’s stance
He went over from the People’s Party to the
Enemy’s 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.
II. In-class activity:
Discussion：
1. The characters’ different attitudes toward love:
(1) The Student’s
(2) The Lizard’s, the Butterfly’s and the Daisy’s
(3) The Nightingale’s
2. Is love better than life, as the Nightingale
believed? Interview other students. Be prepared
to summarize their ideas.
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.