The Nightingale and the Rose: What's Behind Wilde's Tragic Fairy Tales?

The Nightingale and the Rose is a tragic fairy tale with aestheticism written by Wilde, which is known as "the most beautiful fairy tale in the world". Since 1988 first appeared, it caused a sensation and was permanently recorded in the history of British children's literature. This fairy tale makes Wilde as important as Andersen in fairy tale literature.

The fairy tale mainly tells the story that the nightingale was moved by the young students' love for the professor's daughter and gave up her life to find a delicate red rose for him. However, the professor's daughter prefers jewelry to roses. The professor's daughter failed the young students, who turned and abandoned the roses bought by the nightingale with their lives and chose to pursue philosophy in books.

Different from the dream of a princess and a prince woven by Andersen's fairy tales for children, Wilde's tragic fairy tales are mainly based on the grief and sadness in real life, but also intertwined with the conflict between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, satirizing the injustice and hardship in real society. As Wilde said, "the purpose of art is not simple truth, but complex beauty." After reading Wilde's The Nightingale and the Rose, you will get an indescribable shock and touch from the complex aesthetic feeling he created.

Today, I will analyze how this "the most beautiful fairy tale in the world" reveals gorgeous and cold beauty from three aspects: story content, expression technique and emotional expression. The fourth part of the article, based on the story of Nightingale's dedication to beauty in this fairy tale, talks about some thoughts on pursuing beauty in real life and work.

0 1, from the analysis of the story content: The nightingale believes in true love and is willing to sacrifice for this noble emotion in exchange for the symbol of love-rose, and eventually sublimate her soul through sacrifice.

At the beginning of the story, a young student is crying for unattainable love in the garden: his dream lover wants a red rose, but he can't. Other creatures in the garden, such as green lizards, marigolds and butterflies, are laughing behind their backs that young people have suffered so much for a red rose.

The nightingale is amazed! She recalled what she sang and praised day and night. Isn't it painful and sad love that this young student is fascinated by?

The nightingale said, "I sang about his pain, and I was happy about his sadness." She sat quietly on the oak branch, thinking about the mystery of "love".

So the nightingale made a big decision. She wants to find roses for the young man at all costs and help him realize his love pursuit.

In my opinion, the simple and kind nightingale experienced a spiritual baptism here. Before perceiving the love of young students, the nightingale sang for all the beautiful things in the world every night. However, she didn't have a chance to get in touch with what she sang. She is immersed in her own world and sings for this complicated world, which is her unconscious pursuit and yearning for beauty.

The crying of young students made the nightingale get close contact with the spiritual beauty in her singing for the first time. Watching young students grieve for love, nightingale feels a kind of spiritual shock and satisfaction.

This spiritual blow and suffering caused by the pursuit of love is the passion and mystery of love. The nightingale's praise changed from abstract to concrete, which made her willing to pursue it.

It is winter, not the season when red roses are in full bloom. If you want to exchange red roses at this time, you must water the petals with blood and swan songs to dye beautiful red roses. The nightingale is not afraid of this. She said indifferently, "Whose life is not precious, but' love' is more precious than life. How can a bird's heart be compared with a man's? "

The nightingale came to the young student and told him that he would get a rose. The nightingale shouted, "All I ask in return is to be a loyal lover ... Although philosophy is wise, love is wiser than her; Although power is strong, love is greater than her. "

The nightingale gave her bright blood and beautiful swan songs, and a rose as red as fire was born in the nightingale's tragic dedication. At the last moment of her life, the restless nightingale tried her best to convey her singing to the world.

"Echo will lead the song to the dark purple cave on the hillside and wake up the shepherd boy from his dream. The song flows into the reeds by the river, and the reeds send messages to the sea. "

The nightingale pursues love with her life because of her sincere and enthusiastic spiritual belief. She devoted herself selflessly to the love of others. Her only requirement is that young students should always remain loyal to love. The pursuit of nightingale coincides with the view of the Hungarian poet Petofi. As petofi sang in his popular work Freedom and Love, "Life is precious, but love is more expensive."

It is worth mentioning that the "love" here is not limited to the small love of two people, but means a higher level of perfect and pure spiritual pursuit.

Oscar Wilde advocated sincere spiritual beauty, and even the great spiritual pain caused by spiritual destruction was precious to him. Although the nightingale gave her life, her blood and swan song solidified love, and her soul sublimated with singing and spread all over the world.

02. From the analysis of expression techniques, the secular girl, the cowardly youth and the determined Nightingale are in sharp contrast, and Wilde is an armchair scholar who alludes to money worship.

In this paper, a large number of contrastive techniques are used to highlight the tragedy and rarity of the nightingale's sacrifice for love, but behind it lies the author Wilde's ridicule and lashing of the society at that time.

Wilde once commented on the young students in his works in a letter. He said: "In my opinion, he is a very shallow young man, almost as bad as the girl he thinks he is in love with."

In stories, young students always think highly of themselves. He is proud of reading through sage books, but he despises nonhuman nightingales.

The young student said to himself, "Does the nightingale have feelings? I'm afraid not! In fact, like many artists, she is only a superficial form ... Although we always admit that she has an intoxicating singing voice, it is a pity that that kind of singing is meaningless and not practical at all. "

Ironically, young students who think they are well-read and wise can't find a solution to the problem except to cry when they can't get roses. After being cruelly abandoned by the professor's daughter, she would only complain about illusory love and turn to philosophy books for help. However, the nightingale despised by him spent her whole life watering a bright red rose and chasing beautiful love with her whole life's faith.

Young students ridiculed the nightingale as "all superficial" and "not practical at all". As everyone knows, the thick and dusty book they read is the real formalism. Young students have changed from the positive image of pursuing love and enlightening nightingale's aesthetic feeling to the negative image of hypocritical philistine, and the sudden huge contrast makes the irony of the article even stronger.

And this contrast is everywhere in the story.

The girl once pursued roses, but when she received jewels, she decided to give them up. "Everyone knows that the value of jewelry far exceeds that of flowers." In her eyes, the red rose that condenses the true feelings is not as good as the jewelry sent by the rich.

In the story, only the nightingale and the rose really understand love. Secular girls don't understand, cowardly young people don't understand, and onlookers such as green lizards, marigolds and butterflies who laugh at love don't understand. Sadly, in the ending, the nightingale died and the rose was abandoned.

The sharp contrast between the characters and the complicated and unexpected ending have brought great emotional impact to the readers. Even Wilde himself, every time he rereads this story, he will burst into tears.

If you know the birth time of this story, you will better understand the social reality reflected by Wilde in the story. In fact, the sharp contrast reveals the money worship, bourgeois philosophy and hypocritical morality prevailing in Victorian era in19th century.

At that time, the industrial revolution was in full swing, and major social changes brought subversive effects to people. The great development of science and technology has brought great achievements to people's material life, and people's world outlook and values have been strongly impacted.

/kloc-Carlyle, a famous British historian in the 0/9th century, lamented: "When the whole country only cares about money and is dominated by money, the next step is not to step on the ground, but to hang on the bottomless abyss."

Among them, girls are representatives of money worship, young people are representatives of bourgeois philosophy and hypocrisy, while other onlookers, such as green lizards, marigolds and butterflies, are ignorant and superficial people who drift with the tide in society. Wilde portrayed the nightingale as loyal to her beliefs and pursuing her dreams, which alluded to the material society and the ignorant atmosphere at that time.

03. From the analysis of emotional expression, the sacrifice of Nightingale and Rose is a collision between ideal and reality, which destroys the spiritual beauty of a generation. Art for art's sake is Wilde's unremitting pursuit of beauty.

On the last page of this book, there is a sentence like this:

"For Wilde, the artist is the embodiment of Jesus in modern society. His works are the crystallization of his pain and life, just like the nightingale dyed the roses red with her painstaking efforts. "

Oscar Wilde, one of the greatest British writers and artists, was also the main force of 19' s aestheticism movement in the 1980s. He pursued aesthetics all his life and was a representative figure of aestheticism. Even before he died, he was mumbling, "Only beauty is like this." Without exception, his works also show flashy aesthetic feeling and shocking artistic treatment.

The nightingale who wept blood cast a beautiful rose with her swan song all her life, which actually embodied Wilde's aestheticism artistic idea that "art is higher than life". In his view, art is pure, with supreme status and eternal vitality.

Although the rose is not understood by the world and eventually abandoned in the sewer, it does exist in the world and will always exist in the hearts of people who believe in beauty. Love, as the representative of spiritual beauty, is Nightingale's lifelong belief. As the carrier of love, the rose is the beauty that Nightingale is willing to exchange with her life. The nightingale's life, because of the pursuit of love and good feelings, will always be fixed at the moment of sacrifice, just like Wilde's pursuit of beauty until death do us part.

Based on the story of Florence Nightingale's dedication to beauty, this paper talks about my thoughts on the pursuit of beauty in real life and work.

Although The Nightingale and the Rose is a tragic fairy tale, the whole article exudes a magnificent aesthetic feeling. Wilde painted a bright and lively color on the sad background with gorgeous words, which made readers gain a beautiful experience in the reading process, let readers feel a deeper and more meaningful sadness and give readers endless aftertaste.

Through the story of Nightingale's dedication to beauty, I have a deeper understanding of beauty and life, mainly in the following three aspects:

Keep a sensitive heart and be good at discovering the beauty in life.

The nightingale enjoys all the good things in life. In her view, "sitting in the green forest and watching the sun in the golden car and the moon flying in the white beads is really a pleasure." The taste of hawthorn is really fragrant, and the bells in the valley and the weeds on the hillside are really beautiful. "

Everything in the world is beautiful in the nightingale's eyes, which is why she is impressed by human emotions and willing to die for it.

/kloc-Rodin, the greatest realistic sculpture artist in the 0/9th century, once said, "Beauty is everywhere, and only sincere and emotional people can find it."

In real life, we should also be a person who is good at discovering beauty. Like the nightingale, we should always be passionate and explore the beauty around us. Beautiful brilliance may not bring us substantial material help, but it can enrich our spiritual world and let us live firmly and bravely in the secular world.

For example, you can learn photography to record the beauty around you and cultivate yourself to discover, pay attention to and record the beautiful moments and stories around you. Keeping a sensitive heart actually requires us to be good at observing life. In my opinion, learning photography is the best way.

Stick to yourself and be yourself in a complex world, instead of imitating other people's lives.

When green lizards, marigolds, butterflies, etc. Laughing at the young scholars, the nightingale silently made up her mind to exchange roses at all costs. The existence of onlookers such as green lizards is Wilde's attack on those ignorant and empty mediocrities. At the same time, Wilde also took this opportunity to show his firm position on aestheticism, and would not go with the flow.

As San Mao said, "If the heart has no home, it will wander around." If we don't stick to our original intention, then we will lose our souls and become mediocre people who drift with the tide. However, everyone who insists on self, in the secular world, will inevitably encounter the temptation of the outside world, and even some mediocrity will try to assimilate you.

In the complicated world, it is particularly important to keep a clear head at all times. We should be as firm and brave as the nightingale, and we should not go with the flow and imitate other people's lives.

I know a cyclist, Kuang Lu. After graduating from college, many people have entered the workplace and gone their separate ways, but he knows what he likes and what kind of life he wants. So, when all the classmates around him were in 996, he began to travel around China by bike and made a cycling documentary "Traveling in Xinjiang" by himself.

Don't blindly follow the rhythm of people around you, don't envy or imitate others' lives, and bravely pursue your own life. This is the true quality of our new generation.

Even if the real life is not satisfactory, don't give up the pursuit of a better future.

The rose that the nightingale bought with her life was not cherished, but was abandoned in the sewer, next to the nightingale's body. Wilde did not arrange a warm result for this story, but put naked humanity and truth in front of the readers.

In real life, we will also encounter such a blow. Perhaps the ideal we pursue in our hearts, like that fragile rose, is not acceptable to the world. However, even if the real world is not satisfactory, we should strive for a better future.

In the popular Douban film "Better Days" a while ago, Chen Nian, who was bullied by the school, extracted such a sentence from the English textbook: "We all live in the gutter, but some people look up at the stars."

This is Wilde's most popular famous saying, Wilde's belief, and the belief of countless ordinary people who stick to their dreams. Living in the Sewer is the fate of nightingale and rose, the situation of Chen Nian and Xiao Bei, and the portrayal of ordinary people like you and me, which is carried forward by the trend of the times. But living in the gutter does not prevent us from looking up at the stars; An unhappy life does not prevent us from pursuing our dreams.

Conclusion:

The Nightingale and the Rose is Wilde's masterpiece of aestheticism. Its ingenious plot, beautiful and fluent rhetoric and tragic dedication all reflect the dazzling beauty of literature. Through this story, readers can see the charm of aestheticism, experience the impact of emotional destruction, and be moved by loyalty to faith.

In daily life, we should also have a mind that is good at discovering beauty, feel the exquisiteness of all things in the world, protect our mind from being polluted by the complicated secular world, from being tempted by utilitarianism, and be as loyal to our pursuits and beliefs as a nightingale.