Lesson Four The Nightingale and the Rose 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.

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 (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

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

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

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 (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.) 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 (65 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  

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

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: (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.

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)    

The nightingale is the true lover, if there is one     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 (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" .      

   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, "

  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.  

Figurative speeches used in the text: (10 min.)    Personification Simile and phor Climax and Anticlimax

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?

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

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.

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.

…yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched. (for emphasis) 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.

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  

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.

1) to be slow in leaving, especially out of reluctance 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. 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. 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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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) 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) Vocabulary Ex.1 to 12 (Page 95)