Lesson 4 The Nightingale and the Rose

1. Lesson 4The Nightingale and the Rose

2. Contents • Warm-up II. Background Information III.Language Study IV. Text Appreciation

3. I. warm-up Take a Love Quiz

4. 1 • You are walking to your love's house. There are two roads to get there. One is a straight path which takes you there quickly, but is very plain and boring. The other is curvy & full of wonderful sights on the way, but takes quite a while to reach your love's house. • WHICH PATH DO YOU CHOOSE? Short or Long?

5. 2 • On the way, you see two rose bushes. One is full of white roses; the other is full of red roses. You decide to pick twenty roses for your love. (You could pick all of the same color or half & half or whatever combination that suits yourtaste.) • WHAT COLOR COMBO DO YOU CHOOSE?

6. 3 • You finally get to your love's house. You ring the bell and a family member answers the door. You can ask the family member to get your love, or you may get him/her yourself. • WHAT DO YOU DO? Ask or Get Yourself?

7. 4 • Now, You go up to your love's room. No one is there. You could leave the roses by the windowsill or on the bed. • WHERE DO YOU PUT THE ROSES? Window or Bed?

8. 5 • Later it's time for bed. You and your love go to sleep in separate rooms (we're very politically correct, here). You wake up in the morning and go to your love's room to check up on him/her. You enter the room: • IS HE/SHE AWAKE OR SLEEPING?

9. 6 • It's time to go home now and you start to head back. You can take either roadhome now. The plain and boring one that gets you home faster or the curvy and sight-filled road that you can just take your time with. • WHICH ROAD DO YOU CHOOSE? Short or Long?

10. Now analyze your answers: • 1. The road represents your attitude towards falling in love. If you chose the short one, you fall in love quickly and easily. If you chose the long one, you take your time and do not fall in love that easily.

11. 2. The number of red roses represents how much you expect to give in a relationship. The number of white roses represents how much you expect in a relationship. So, if a person chose all red with one white rose, he/she gives 90% in the relationship, but expects to receive only 10% back.

12. 3. This question shows your attitude in handling relationship problems. If you asked the family member to get your love, then you are the type who wants to avoid problems. If you went to get your love yourself, then you are pretty direct and solve the problem right away.

13. 4. The placement of the roses indicates how often you would like to see your love. Putting the roses on the bed means, you want to see them a lot. If you placed the roses by the window this means you don't mind seeing each other once in a while.

14. 5. Finding your love asleep: You accept your love the way they are. Finding them awake means you expect them tochange for you.

15. 6. The short and long roads now represent how long you could stay in love. If you chose the short one, you fall out of love easily. If you chose the long one, you tend to stay in love for a long, long time.

16. Oscar Wilde • "I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age... The gods had given me almost everything. 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..."

17. "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.The poet’s height is several inches over six feet. His hair is of dark brown color, and falls down upon his shoulders. When he laughs his lips part widely and show a shining row of upper teeth, which are superlatively white. "

18. 3. Do You Know? • What comes to your mind when you first read the title? • Did you enjoy fairy tales as a child? Why or why not? • What characteristics of fairy tales did you find appealing? • Do you believe in perfect love? Why or why not?

19. Fairy Tales • —fairies play a part • —supernatural or magical elements • —children’s stories • —veiled comments on life

20. Characteristics: 1) personification of birds, insects, animals and trees 2) vivid, simple narration—typical of the oral tradition of fairy tales 3) repetitive pattern

21. II. Background information • Author • Art for Art’s Sake

22. 1. Author • Oscar Wilde, the son of the late Sir William Wilde, an eminent Irish surgeon. • His mother was a graceful writer, both in prose and verse. • He had a brilliant career at Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for English verse for a poem on Ravenna.

23. 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.

24. A novel of his, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, attracted much attention, and his sayings passed from mouth to mouth as those of one of the professed wits of the age. • When he became a dramatist his plays had all the characteristics of his conversations. • His first piece, Lady Windermere's Fan, was produced in 1892. A Woman of No Importance followed in 1893.

25. An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest were both running at the time of his disappearance from English life. • The revelations of the criminal trial in 1895 naturally made them impossible for some years. • Recently, however, one of them was revived, though not at a West End theater.

26. 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 • a playwright of skill and subtle humor • a dramatist whose plays had all the characteristics of his conversations

27. After his release in 1897, Wilde published “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, a poem of considerable but unequal power. • He also appeared in print as a critic of our prison system, against the results of which he entered a passionate protest. • For the last three years he has lived abroad. It is stated on the authority of the Dublin Evening Mail that he was recently received into the Roman Catholic Church.

28. In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Bosie was well acquainted with Oscar's novel, Dorian Gray and was an undergraduate at Oxford. They soon became lovers and were inseparable until Wilde's arrest three years later.  • In April 1895, Oscar sued Bosie's father for libel on the charge of homosexuality. Oscar withdrew his case but was himself arrested and convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labor. 

29. January 1893, Babbacombe Cliff My Own Boy, Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those red-roseleaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry. I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you in Greek days. Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury? Do go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like. It is a lovely place and lacks only you; but go to Salisbury first. Always, with undying love,Yours, OSCAR

30. Savoy Hotel, London Dearest of all Boys, Your letter was delightful, red and yellow wine to me; but I am sad and out of sorts. Bosie, you must not make scenes with me. They kill me, they wreck the loveliness of life. I cannot see you, so Greek and gracious, distorted with passion. I cannot listen to your curved lips saying hideous things to me. I would sooner be blackmailed by every rent-boy in London than to have you bitter, unjust, hating. You are the divine thing I want, the thing of grace and beauty; but I don't know how to do it. Shall I come to Salisbury? My bill here is 49 pounds for a week. I have also got a new sitting-room over the Thames. Why are you not here, my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave; no money, no credit, and a heart of lead. Your own, OSCAR

31. Bobby,Bosie has insisted on dropping here for sandwiches. He is quite like a narcissus—so white and gold. I will either come Wednesday or Thursday night to your rooms. Send me a line. Bosie is so tired; he lies like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him. Yours, OSCAR

32. 2. Art for Art’s Sake • associated with the aesthetic doctrine that art is self-sufficient and need serve no moral or political purpose • 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.

33. III. Language study • Word Study • Phrases and Expressions • Word Building • Grammar

34. 1. Word Study • Word list: 1. fling 2. bloom 3. ebb 4. linger 5. pluck 6. frown 7. ungrateful

35. 1. Word Study • 1. fling v. a. to throw violently, with force b. to move violently or quickly c. to devote to Examples: • Don’t fling your clothes on the floor. • She flung herself down on the sofa. • He flung himself into the task.

36. 1. Word Study • 2. bloom vi. to produce flowers; to yield flowers; to come into flower or be in flower blossom vi. a. (of a seed, plant, esp. a tree or plant) to produce or yield flowers; to bloom b. to develop Examples: • The roses are blooming. • The apple trees are blossoming. • Their friendship blossomed when they found out how many interests they shared.

37. 1. Word Study • 3. ebb vi. a. to fall back from the flood stage b. to fall away or back; to decline or recede Examples: • The tide will begin to ebb at 4 o’clock. • The danger of conflict is not ebbing there. • The tide is on the ebb. • The financial resources have reached its lowest ebb.

38. 1. Word Study • 4. linger v. a. to be slow in leaving, esp. out of reluctance b. to proceed slowly c. to persist d. to pass (time) in a leisurely or aimless manner Examples: • The children lingered at the zoo until closing time. • linger over one’s work (磨洋工) • Winter lingers. • We lingered away the whole summer at the beach.

39. 1. Word Study • 5. pluck v. to remove or detach by grasping and pulling abruptly with the fingers; to pick Examples: • pluck a flower • pluck feathers from a chicken • pluck a rabbit from the hat

40. 1. Word Study • 6. frown v. a. to wrinkle the brows to show you are annoyed or worried b. to regard sth. with disapproval or distaste Examples: • The teacher frowned at the class of noisy children but it had no effect. • frown on the use of so much salt in the food

41. 1. Word Study • 7. ungrateful v. a. not feeling or exhibiting gratitude, thanks, or appreciation b. not agreeable or pleasant Examples: • “I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure.” • an ungrateful son

42. 2. Phrases and Expressions • List: • something of a(n) • see phrases • go phrases

43. 2. Phrases and Expressions • 1. something of a(n) to some extent Example: • Our professor is something of an eccentric. Compare: something like: similar to but not exactly like • He sounds something like his father when he speaks on the phone.

44. 2. Phrases and Expressions • 2. see phrases see about doing to attend to; make arrangements for; to deal with see sth. out to last until the end of Examples: • It is time for me to see about cooking the dinner. • Will our supplies see the winter out? • It was such a bad play we couldn’t see out the performance and we left early.

45. 2. Phrases and Expressions • see through sb./sth. a. to understand the true character or nature of b. to provide unstinting support, cooperation, or management in good times and bad Examples: • We saw through his superficial charm. • We'll see you through until you finish your college education. I saw the project through and then resigned.

46. 2. Phrases and Expressions • see to sth. to attend to; to take care of Example: • If I see to getting the car out, will you see to closing the windows?

47. 2. Phrases and Expressions • 3. go phrases go about sth.: to perform to do • go about one’s business • Don’t go about the job that way. go by sth.: to use the information or advice you get from a person, a book, a set of rules, etc. • go by the rules

48. 2. Phrases and Expressions go into: to enter a profession or state of life • go into business go through sth.: a. to examine carefully b. to experience • go through the students' papers • The country has gone through too many wars.

49. 3. Word Building • List: • Noun+Noun • Prefix—out • Root—press

50. 3. Word Building • Moonlight Sunshine 阳光 sunshade 遮阳伞,帽遮开销,支出 Lifeblood 活力的源泉 lifeboat 救生艇 Earphone 耳机 sunflower 向日葵 Lifecycle 生命周期 bookshelf 书架 Network 网络 fisherman 渔夫 Housework 家务 busybody 爱管闲事的人