The Nightingale and the Rose – Oscar Wilde – A nightingale overhears a student complaining that his professor’s daughter will not dance with him, as he is unable to give her a red rose. The nightingale visits all the rose-trees in the garden, and one of the white roses tell her that there’s a way to produce a red rose, but only if the nightingale is prepared to sing the sweetest song for the rose all night, and sacrifice her life to do so. Seeing the student in tears, the nightingale carries out the ritual, and impales herself on the rose-tree’s thorn so that her heart’s blood can stain the rose. The student takes the rose to the professor’s daughter, but she again rejects him because another man has sent her some real jewels, and ‘everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.’ The student angrily throws the rose into the gutter, returns to his study of metaphysics, and decides not to believe in true love anymore.
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Author Oscar Wilde was known for his acclaimed works including ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and ‘The Importance of Being Earnest, ‘ as well as his brilliant wit, flamboyant style and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality.Who Was Oscar Wilde?Author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism. In 1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was panned as immoral by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable works. As a dramatist, many of Wildes plays were well received including his satirical comedies Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play. Unconventional in his writing and life, Wildes affair with a young man led to his arrest on charges of ‘gross indecency’ in 1895. He was imprisoned for two years and died in poverty three years after his release at the age of 46.
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