1. Part Three
Text Appreciation W B T L E
ENTER

2. Text Appreciation Contents Text Analysis Writing Devices
1. Theme
2. Structure
3. Further Discussion
Writing Devices
1. Genre and Symbols
2. Figurative Speeches
a. Personification
b. Simile & Metaphor
c. Climax & Anticlimax
3. Syntactic Devices
III. Sentence Paraphrase

3. Text Analysis
Theme
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. Nightingale sacrifices its own life for pure love’s sake. A true love needs wholehearted devotion and passion.
The end of Theme.

4. Text Analysis Structure Part 1 (Paras. ): Part 2 (Paras. ):
1-12
Nightingale struck by “the mystery of love”
13-34
Nightingale looking for a red rose to facilitate the love
35-45
Nightingale sacrificing her life for a red rose
46-54
Student discarding the red rose
The end of Structure.

5. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
Fairy tale 
Question: What genre can this story be
categorized into?
Optimism Pessimism
comparison
Fairy tales conclude with the cliché typical of most fairy tales, ‘They all lived happily ever after,’ implying better living circumstances for all.
Wilde’s fairy tales have no happy endings. His tales end mostly in unresolved tensions, provoking readers to consider necessary improvements which need to be made within the social order. Even in his most popular tales, the protagonists die.
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6. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
Question: What are the symbolic meanings of
“Red rose”, “Lizard”, “Butterfly” and
“Nightingale”?
red rose—true love, which needs constant nourishment of passions of the lovers. It can be divided into three stages: love in the heart of a boy and a girl; love in the soul of a man and a maid; and love that is perfected by Death, that does not die in the tomb.
Lizard—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
For Reference
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7. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
Question: What are the symbolic meanings of
“Red rose”, “Lizard”, “Butterfly” and
“Nightingale”?
For Reference
Nightingale—a truthful, devoted pursuer of love, who dares to sacrifice his own precious life
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8. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
For reference:
The Nightingale is a small brown bird famous for its beautiful sad song. Throughout literary history there are many poems and stories dedicated to the nightingale, including John Keats’ poem Ode to a Nightingale and Oscar Wilde’s children’s story, The Nightingale and the Rose. 
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9. Self-comment on his own life To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
Question: What’s Oscar Wilde’s belief on love
and art?
Self-comment on his own life
“Some said my life was a lie but I always knew it to be the truth; for like the truth was rarely pure and never simple.”
Paradoxical, contradictory, well-turned phrase
Wildean dichotomy
Duality in all aspects fascinates and confuses: the Anglo-Irishman with nationalist sympathies; the protestant with life-long Catholic leanings; the married homosexual; the musician of words and painter of language who confessed that writing bored him…
a figure of paradox and contradiction
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10. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
“I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring; I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men and the colour of things: there was nothing I said or did that did not make people wonder... I treated Art as the supreme reality, and life as a mere mode of fiction: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”
a figure of paradox and contradiction
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11. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
Optimism Pessimism
"Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."
—St. Augustine
"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
—Thoreau
"To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best."
—William M. Thackeray
"As the ocean is never full of water, so is the heart never full of love." —Anonymous
One should always be in love.  That is the reason one should never marry. 
—Oscar Wilde
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.  —Oscar Wilde
Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot.
Comparative Study of Quotes on Love
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12. Pessimism About the Future To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
Pessimism About the Future
“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
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13. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
Question: What do you think is the Wildean
attitude toward love, romance, art
and philosophy?
Content (Three stages of love)
Form (The beauty of language)  
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14. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
For reference:
Form  Content
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. (Wilde’s comments in a letter to one of his friends)
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15. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
For reference:
His fairy tales have been described as “poems in prose”.
an appreciation of beautiful things
And the marvelous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of its petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart… then she gave one last burst of music. The white moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it and trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air.
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16. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis
Assonance: the resemblance of sound between syllables in nearby words, arising from the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not the consonants 
For reference:
His fairy tales have been described as “poems in prose”.
“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose…”
   
“It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the market-place. It may not be purchased of the merchants, …”   
assonance
Alliteration: the use of identical consonant with different vowels
alliteration
assonance
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17. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
For reference:
head vs. heart
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.
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18. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
Question: What are the types of sentences
mainly found in this story?
   
 simple
 short
 long
 complex
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19. To be continued on the next page.
Text Analysis 
For reference:
head vs. heart
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, though he is mighty." 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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20. Text Analysis  Question: The story is written in
   
 concrete style (mostly nouns and few
adjectives)
 flowery style (very descriptive with
The end of Questions.

21. Further Discussion About the Text
Text Analysis
Further Discussion About the Text
Why is it so important for the student to have a red rose?
Why is the Nightingale so determined to get the student a red rose?
Why is a rose so hard to get?
Why is the Nightingale so persistent in shedding its blood for the student?
Is love better than life as is believed by the Nightingale?
Do you believe in true love? Why or why not?
Comment on Wilde’s attitude to Love, Romance.
The end of Further Discussion.

22. The end of Genre and Symbols.
Writing Devices
Genre and Symbols
Fairy tales are full of imagery and symbols. Find imagery and symbols in this text.
jewels (gems, precious stones): emeralds, opal,
ruby, sapphire, diamond, jade
plants: daisy, rose, oak-tree, daffodil
animals: nightingale, lizard, butterfly
subjects: philosophy, metaphysics, logic
stringed instruments: harp, violin
The end of Genre and Symbols.

23. What effect do you think it has here?
Writing Devices
Personification
“She has form, that cannot be denied but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others.” he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove. (Para. 34)
What effect do you think it has here?
Personification:
give human forms or feelings to animals, or life and personal attributes to inanimate objects, or to ideas and abstractions

24. Writing Devices Simile & Metaphor Simile:
… her voice was like water bubbling from
a silver jar.
… as white as the foam of the sea…
Metaphor:
… and redder than the fans of coral
… and the cold crystal moon

25. To be continued on the next page.
Writing Devices
Climax & Anticlimax
What effect do you think it has here?
So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sung of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.
More Examples
Climax: derived from the Greek word “ladder”, implying the progression of thought at a uniform or almost uniform rate of significance or intensity
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26. The end of Figurative Speeches.
Writing Devices
Climax & Anticlimax
And the marvelous rose became crimson. Crimson was the girdle of pedals, and crimson as ruby was the heart. But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, and she felt choking in her throat.
And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out. … “What a wonderful piece of luck!” he cried… he leaned down and plucked it.
Anticlimax: stating one’s thoughts in a descending order of significance or intensity, often used to ridicule or satire
The end of Figurative Speeches.

27. To be continued on the next page.
Writing Devices
Syntactic Devices
Style or manner of expression
choice of words
grammatical structures
length of sentences
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28. To be continued on the next page.
Writing Devices
Concrete
nouns
Diction
Then she gave one last burst of music. The Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The Red Rose heard it, and trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals in the cold morning air.
Concrete verbs
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29. To be continued on the next page.
Writing Devices
So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through the grove.
Synonym
Preciseness?
high
In a stately & confident manner
swiftly & smoothly
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30. Writing Devices
So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sung of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.
And the marvelous rose became crimson. Crimson was the girdle of pedals, and crimson as ruby was the heart. But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, and she felt choking in her throat.
Descriptive adjectives
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31. Syntactical Structures
Writing Devices
Syntactical Structures
Find more examples in the text.
Inversion
… and louder and louder grew her song…
Rhetorical Question
What is a heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?
Repetition
And a delicate flush of pink came into leaves of the rose, like the flush in the face of the bridegroom where he kisses the lips of the bride.
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32. Writing Devices Repetition
She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through the grove.
Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song.
And the marvelous rose became crimson. Crimson was the girdle of pedals, and crimson as ruby was the heart.
But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter… Fainter and fainter grew her song…
Find more examples in the text.
The end of Writing Devices.

33. Sentence Paraphrase 1
I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose my life is made wretched. (Para. 3)
The student possesses all the wisdom, yet understands nothing about love.
his nature of taking instead of giving
The use of “all” stresses perfect mentality the student claims he possesses.
go to 2

34. To be continued on the next page.
Sentence Paraphrase 2
But the Nightingale understood the student’s sorrow, and sat silent in the Oak-tree. (Para. 12)
More Examples
subject complement
go to 3
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35. Sentence Paraphrase
So I shall sit lonely and my heart will break. (Para. 5)
Ah, I have read all that the wise men have written… my life is made wretched. (Para. 3)
back to 2

36. Sentence Paraphrase 3
What is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man? (Para. 28)
A question in form but a statement in meaning
The heart of a bird is nothing compared to the heart of a man.
go to 4

37. Sentence Paraphrase 4
“She has form,” he said to himself, as he walked away. “That cannot be denied. But has she got feeling? I’m afraid not. In fact, like most artists, she is all style without any sincerity.”(Para. 34)
way in which something is said, done, expressed, or performed
design, structure, or pattern of a work of art
capacity to experience the higher emotions
nothing but
The student’s ignorance of what true love is makes him conclude that Nightingale’s last singing is void of feeling and sincerity.
go to 5

38. Sentence Paraphrase 5
… the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb. (Para. 41)
the Love that never dies
that does not die in the tomb
The end of Sentence Paraphrases.

39. Part Three Text Appreciation
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