Lesson Four The Nightingale and the Rose
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I. Background (35 minutes)
About the author:
Oscar Wilde’s early school years (5 min.)
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 Wilde’s works (3 min.)
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: (7 min.)
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
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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 Wilde’s belief (5 min.)
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: (15 min.)
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Quotes on Men
Men become old, but they never become good. Lady
Windermere's Fan.
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Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair
that some men should be happier than others. In
Conversation.
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Men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and
abominably conceited when they are not. A Woman of No
Importance.
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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.
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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.
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In Conversation.
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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.
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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 (65
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minutes)
Structure (5 min.)
Nightingale struck by the “the mystery
of love”
Nightingale looking for a red rose to
facilitate the love
Nightingale sacrificing her life for a
red rose
Student discarding the red rose
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Genre of this story and its
characteristics:
Fairy tales (10 min.)
- fairies play a part
- contain supernatural or magical
elements
- children’s 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 “Nightingale”:
Symbolic meanings: (10min.)
Red rose --- true love, which needs
constant nourishment of passions of
the lovers.
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.
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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): (5 min.)
Lizard --- cynic (cynical people)
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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
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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 (10 min.)
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" .
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The Student, the young woman, and their
society are all one-sided psychically. They
have ded the "capacity to love", here
symbolized by both the Nightingale and the rose.
The relationship of head and heart is a
central concern of Wilde's fairy
tales. 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, "
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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.
Wilde is right that the only lover is the
Nightingale. The wholeness it achieves is
symbolized by the discarded, ded 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: (10 min.)
Personification
Simile and phor
Climax and Anticlimax
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Personification
--- give human forms or feelings
to animals, or life and personal
attributes to inanimate objects, or to
ideas and abstractions.
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e.g. Time, you old gypsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
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Simile and phor
Simile:
…her voice was like water
bubbling from a silver jar.
…as white as the foam of the
sea…phor:
...and the cold crystal moon
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Writing techniques: (10 min.)
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.
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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.
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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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The Nightingale and the Rose
(Period 3 and period 4)
I. Language Points (50 minutes)
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, physics（形而上
学）, logic
stringed instruments: harp（竖琴）, violin
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 o’clock.
2) to fall away or back; decline or recede
The danger of conflict is not ebbing
there.
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6. linger
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vi.
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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
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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
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7. linger
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vi.
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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.
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8. see
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.
see something out: to last until
the end of 熬过，度过
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Will our supplies see the winter out?
It was such a bad play we couldn’t see
out the performance and we left early.
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.
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?
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9. go
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.
go after sb/sth
to go after a job, a girl, a prize
go against sb/sth
Opinion is going against us.
The case may go against us.
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go along : vi. to agree with, support
We’ll go along with you /your suggestion.
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.
go back on sth Don’t go back on your promise.
Never go back on your friends.背叛，出卖
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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.
go into: to enter a profession, state of
life
to go into business/films
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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.
go under vi= go bankrupt, fail
She has so many worries, she is sure to
go under.
II. Discussion：(30 minutes)
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1. The characters’ different attitudes
toward love: (15 min.)
(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. (15 min.)
III. Exercises in the textbook. (20
minutes)
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Vocabulary
Ex.1 to 12 (Page 95)