Combination of Aestheticism and Fairy Tales
Hu Yu says: “Wilde’s fantastic imagination is glamour and unbelievable, it is in the poet and fairy tales that this terrific magic stands out obviously.” Actually, Wilde’s theory of aestheticism has a natural combination with the style of fairy tales. Fairy tale writer Hong Xuntao points out that: “Fairy tales are always combined with beauty. It is the fairy tale’s nature to pursue beauty.” This fit not only makes his fairy tales beautiful essays of Children’s literature in the history of the world. But also makes his theory expressed vividly. It mainly manifests in the following aspects: A. The fantasy world of binary opposition
Fantastic imagination and clear contradiction are the first characteristics in Wilde’s aesthetic theory. The aestheticism he pursued is originated from abstract decoration and involves unrealistic and unexciting things. Specifically targeted at the popular literature and art of realism and naturalism style, he put forward to shock the world with the concept “lying” art, whose essence was imagination. He thought when art abandoned imagination, it means losing everything, because the power of imagination is endless. Oscar Wilde’s imagination is fit to the essential character of the fairy-tale. As is known to all, the core of fairy-tale is imagination, which is determined by children’s psychological characteristics. British aesthetics historian Lee Stowe Wei had this exposition: As primitive, the children were extreme egoist, unconsciously solipsism, they mixed dreams and reality together as well as the non-living things and his life was confused with self. In other words, imaging is children’s nature. Everything in their eyes has its own soul and personality, while the imagination in fairy-tales intrigued them into reading. In order to be company with the mermaid he loved, the fisherman turned to witches, slitting his own farewell to soul under the shadow of the moon. In the fairy-tale world filled with imagination, beauty or ugliness, kind or evil are clearly different and fit to children’s interests. Children are pure, in their mind these differences are clear rather than complicated, he insisted that it is not art that reflects reality but otherwise reality is ugly, only beauty has external values. Formation is the beginning of everything.
Chapter4 Tragedy Analysis of The Nightingale and the Rose
For The Nightingale and the Rose, there were great and intense atmosphere of tragedy in it, which was called the tragedy aestheticism in literature. Oscar Wilde’s life experience and theory of beauty provided a basis for his tragedy. The following words will well illustrate the theory of Oscar tragedy aestheticism and the tragedies of the three main characters in the story.
4.1 Tragedy Aestheticism
Oscar Wilde lived in the 19th century of Victoria time. During that period, the industrial revolution was developed smoothly like a raging fire. The whole society was experiencing great changes in all the racks, materialism, money or wealth-centered, which have swept all the corner of the country. Since the establishment of capitalism in the beginning of 19th century, the great changes of society have produced great psychological effect on the inner mind of human being. The concepts of world, value, friendship, life and soon have deeply changed.
In the society of capitalism, the capitalists have removed all the glories of the highly respected occupations. Whatever doctors, lawyers, preachers, poets and scholars have all became the slave of money and wealth. In the story of The Nightingale and the Rose, Oscar Wilde described a romanced story to reveal the corrupting vogue and phenomenon of Britain society. His words aimed to fight against the direct and naked wealth relationship among human beings and various ugly things spreading among the county, and pursue the aestheticism world and arts. He tries his best to reveal and criticize the society through his pursuit to pure love in literature. Oscar Wilde as a responsible and dutiful being, he was deeply upset by the unsatisfactory social atmosphere. He once said that the most wonderful thing of human being-love has also been corrupted by gold, selfishness, and others. These things do not only threat the love of us but also our lives. His worrying feeling was well illustrated through the performance of the young student in the end of the story. It reads love is not half useful than logic and philosophy.
4.2 The Embodiment of the article
Wilde’s most powerful defense must be the words choosing, and no other writer in the English language has used them with the same elegance. He made an art form of the single and the perfectly poised, contradictory phrase. In this story, when the Nightingale flew over to the rose-tree and asked for a red rose, the Tree shook its head and answered. “My roses are white, as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain…” “My rose is yellow, as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe… ”. For another instance, “And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like the flush in the face of the bridegroom when the kisses the lips of the bride…” (Oscar Wilde, 2009)The beautiful scenery with flowers, full of colors, romance and nice beauties unfolded before us. The author used the simile, personification and allegory and also according the old tradition. Those figure of speeches, make readers more close to the roles. Readers can feel the feelings what the nightingale’s feel. Each time the nightingale asking for help, she always used the “crying” voice. That is the more beautiful it is, the more regretful the readers will feel for the little bird, and the more deeply they can conceive the implication that the author is driving at.
4.3 The tragedy of love pursuit
According to the above words, the three main characters’ pursuit of love all encounters failure. These failures were not only the tragedy of love but also the tragedy of love pursuer. The following words will analyze these tragedies individually.
For the young student, he failed his love to the daughter. The most important reason for his failure was his inadequate understanding of his lover. His beloved was not the one of true feeling but of wealth and material. He dreamed to get her love through a red rose, while he only got ridiculous and embarrassment in the end.
For the little nightingale, she even sacrificed her precious life to pursue the love of young student. Her failure was caused by that she chooses a wrong lover. The nightingale flew from place to place only to get a red rose for her lover, but he cares nothing. The nightingale used her breast to pierce into the thorn of the rose tree and bleed to death only for a red rose, but her lover showed no sympathy and thanks. She sang all the best songs and lost her voice to get a red rose, but her lover knew nothing. She lost her life and got a love rose, but her lover didn’t care for the nightingale’s efforts. After being refused by the young lady, he threw the red flower to the body nearby the nightingale. He even forgot to bury his best beloved-the nightingale. We could say the nightingale was the great suffer of this love tragedy.
For the young daughter of professor, she refused a true lover of her. As was attracted by the wealth and hypocrisy of the society, she lost the ability to justify and distinguish her pursuer. She refused true love and would be refused by the wealthy society.
Above all, three different pursuit of love all met failure. It almost made me breathe hard when thinking of the tragedy of the best thing of human being.
4.4 The sympathy towards the suffered and Request for fairness
What's more important is that, Wilde's sympathy towards the punished leads him to quest the punishment and the laws that behind it. He finds that not all the guilt is punished. The punishment of the individual seems an arbitrary and monstrous injustice of law. A kind of unjustness is that he himself has to pay high for an offense that so many others were equally “guilty”, but are not being punished... This may be the exculpation for himself but it raises the whole problem of social injustice. There is apology and accusation at the same time.
According to the life experience and above introduction of Oscar Wilde, we know that he always use his pen to fight against the unfair society and reveal the darkness of society. The nightingale in the society was in fact a symbol of mysterious power to help the suffered poor in the representation of a young student. The author showed great sympathy towards the young student through the magic power and ability of nightingale.
Chapter5 My Brief Comment and Conclusion
My brief comment
The Nightingale and the Rose was only a simple fairy tale, while it includes too much expectation like candles lighting the inner heart of its readers. For me, it was almost impossible to find another simple and short piece of words as beautiful and pure and gracious as it. Who was the real nightingale? Why she sacrificed her life for that young student. Why she could obtain so great courage to fulfill her motivation? Let’s look at the original words in the story，“Here at last is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "Night after night have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him.” How simple the reason was. The nightingale tries his best to help the young student, just because he is a true lover. There were so many so-called true lovers in this world. Is it worth to sacrifice her life only for a true love? The nightingale under Oscar Wilde’s pen was not an ordinary one; she was marvelous, magic and most precious nightingale in the world. In the eyes of common people, kindness was divided into different grades; people would give or denote kindness according to different persons and situations. Usually speaking, people would consider the worth and results before showing their kindness to others. While this nightingale was different from others, she gave her life without too much consideration of her lover. Night after night she song for her lover and told him the story of stars. She hasn’t considered the result she would to face after sacrifice, she thought everything was natural and worthy even we have to pay more than it has. Through the entire story, the nightingale never regretted her behavior until the last drop of her blood. In the nightingale’s mind, a true lover was obtaining in the worth of everything. Because the precious love was also essential and important in her short life. This was the aim and principle of the little bird, without regret. Kindness shouldn’t be classified if it comes from truth. The nightingale forgot herself in helping others. Insider her body we saw a noble heart, a pure angel, a daughter of lights and the person of saving the public from darkness. The nightingale has totally become the symbol of angel, kindness and beauty.
Conclusion
Oscar Wilde criticizes and satirizes the hypocrisy and corruption in Victorian period through the trivial being’s tragedy. The author employed personification, parallel, contrast, symbolism and other rhetoric methods to make an understanding and comment on the society reality and life. Wilde hid many hints in his story for the question “who is the real protagonist in the tale?’. Obviously the answer was the nightingale. The nightingale used her life and blood to pursue and song for pure love. Her efforts were made for her love to the student only. This purified love was called aestheticism in literature. Although the main characters’ pursuit failed, the creator also left a chance for them to return to their previous world, which shows author’s sympathy towards the pressed. Whether in form or content, The Nightingale and the Rose could be regarded as the classic representation of the author’s tragedy aestheticism.
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发表于 2012-8-5 22:35:05
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