The Nightingale and the Rose – Oscar Wilde

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教育者の方へ： The Nightingale and the Rose – Oscar Wilde（English、World Literature）向けのすぐ使えるレッスンスライド, 復習ノート — レッスンで使うか、学習者がライブゲームとして遊ぶインタラクティブなクラス活動としてトピックを実施できます。

レッスンノート

The story at a glance

  • "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), from×The Happy Prince and Other Tales×(1888).
  • A literary fairy tale: a Student weeps because the Professor's daughter will dance with him at the Prince's ball only if he brings her a red rose — and there are none in his garden.
  • A Nightingale, believing him "a true lover", gives her life to create a red rose, singing all night with her breast against a thorn.
  • The daughter rejects the rose for jewels; the Student throws it in the gutter and returns to his books.
  • Key ideas: love and sacrifice, art and the artist, materialism, reason vs feeling, irony.

The Student and the Nightingale

  • The Student cries that his life is wretched "for want of a red rose"; the Nightingale, in the oak-tree, thinks: "Here at last is a true lover."
  • The Green Lizard, a Butterfly and a Daisy mock his tears: "For a red rose?" — the Lizard, "something of a cynic", laughs.
  • Only the Nightingale "understood the secret of the Student's sorrow".
  • She flies to three rose-trees: the white ("as white as the foam of the sea"), the yellow round the old sun-dial, and the red beneath the Student's window — whose buds were nipped by winter frost.

The terrible price

  • The red Rose-tree: "you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood" — singing all night with her breast against a thorn.
  • "Death is a great price to pay for a red rose," she says, listing the beauties of life — yet "Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?"
  • She tells the Student to be happy and a "true lover", for "Love is wiser than Philosophy" — but he "only knew the things that are written down in books".
  • The Oak-tree, who loves her, asks for one last song.
  • The Student judges her song: "She has form… but has she got feeling?" — all style, without sincerity — a bitter irony, since she is about to die for love.

The making of the rose

  • All night she sings, pressing closer; the cold crystal Moon leans down to listen.
  • The rose grows petal by petal — pale, then pink "like the flush in the face of the bridegroom" — but the heart stays white until the thorn reaches her heart.
  • At last "the marvellous rose became crimson"; with one last burst of music she dies, "with the thorn in her heart".
  • The Moon, Echo and the sea carry her song: nature mourns what humans ignore.

The ending

  • At noon the Student finds the rose: "Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!" — he never knows the cost; he thinks it must have "a long Latin name".
  • The daughter: "I am afraid it will not go with my dress"; besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent real jewels, which "cost far more than flowers".
  • The Student throws the rose into the street: it falls into the gutter, and a cart-wheel went over it.
  • "What a silly thing Love is… It is not half as useful as Logic" — he returns to Philosophy and Metaphysics, and a "great dusty book".
  • The ending is bitterly ironic: the one true lover in the story was the bird.

Methods and interpretations

  • Fairy-tale form: talking animals and trees, patterns of three (three rose-trees), simple, musical prose.
  • Lyrical, repetitive language and similes ("as white as the foam of the sea", "crimson as a ruby").
  • Irony: the cynical Lizard, the Student who doubts the bird's feeling, the rose crushed by a cart-wheel.
  • Symbolism: the red rose = love and art made from suffering; the thorn = sacrifice; jewels = materialism.
  • Readings: a critique of a shallow, materialistic society; a parable of the artist who suffers to create beauty that the world does not value; echoes of Christian sacrifice.
  • Section B pairings: "George Silverman's Explanation" (sacrifice misunderstood), "The Shrinking Shoe" (love), "Lappin and Lapinova" (fantasy and reality).

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練習問題

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  1. 1.Who wrote 'The Nightingale and the Rose'?

    Easy
    • AOscar Wilde
    • BHans Christian Andersen
    • CSaki
    • DVirginia Woolf

  2. 2.Why is the Student unhappy?

    Easy
    • AHe has failed his exams
    • BHe is ill
    • CHis garden is dying
    • DHe has no red rose to win a dance with the Professor's daughter

  3. 3.What does the Nightingale think of the Student?

    Easy
    • AHe is a poet
    • BHe is cruel
    • CHere at last is a true lover
    • DHe is a fool

  4. 4.Which creature is described as 'something of a cynic'?

    Medium
    • AThe Oak-tree
    • BThe Lizard
    • CThe Daisy
    • DThe Butterfly

  5. 5.What colour are the roses of the tree by the old sun-dial?

    Medium
    • AYellow
    • BWhite
    • CRed
    • DPink

  6. 6.Why can't the red rose-tree give a rose?

    Medium
    • AIt has been cut down
    • BIt only grows white roses
    • CThe Student picked them all
    • DWinter frost and storm have damaged it

  7. 7.How must the Nightingale make the red rose?

    Medium
    • ADye a white rose
    • BPray to the Moon
    • CSing all night with her breast against a thorn
    • DSteal it from the Prince

  8. 8.What reason does the Nightingale give for her sacrifice?

    Medium
    • AShe wants to be famous
    • BLove is better than Life
    • CShe is tired of living
    • DThe tree forces her

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