Term work: Stylistic features of modern English on the example of Wilde's fairy tale “The Nightingale and the Rose”

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

 

 

Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University

Humanitarian Faculty

 

 

Term work: Stylistic features of modern English on the example of Wilde's fairy tale “The Nightingale and the Rose”

 

 

 

 

 

                   Written by: Ilicheva Yana

4124/1

 

 

 

 

Saint-Petersburg

2012

Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………………3

Part 1. Stylistic features of modern English………………………………...4

1. The levels of language………………………………………..5

Part 2. Stylistic analysis of the nightingale and the rose……………………6

1. Linguistic features of the fairy-tale…………………………...9

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………12

Vocabulary…………………………………………………………………13

Bibliography……………………………………………………………….14

Appendix…………………………………………………………………..15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

Stylistics, which may be defined as the study of the language of literature, makes use of various tools of linguistic analysis. Stylistics is a field of empirical inquiry, in which the insights and techniques of linguistic theory are used to analyze literary texts. A typical way to do stylistics is to apply the systems of categorisation and analysis of linguistic science to poems and prose, using theories relating to, for example, phonetics, syntax and semantics.

My paper is devoted to the analysis of stylistic features of English.  The main goal of the work is to analyze and find in the text examples which belong to stylistic features. The methodic base on the work became the works of Arnold I.V. Modern English Stylistic, Leech G.N.; Short М.Н. Style in Fiction. A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. The term work consists of Introduction, Main Part an conclusion, which are followed by the list of the literature used in the course of research.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1. Stylistic features of modern English

Stylistics refers to stylistic study specially. The aim of the stylistic study is to interpret the literary meaning and aesthetic effect of literature texts linguistically. There are many definitions on the stylistics. Leech G.N. and Short M.H. defined that “Compared with many other studies, literary stylistics is a new science, a linguistic approach towards literature works. It applies theories of modern linguistics to the study of literature and attempts to relate the critic's concern with aesthetic appreciation and the readers' intuition with the linguist's concern with linguistic description”.¹ In this term work I use textbook by Arnold I. “Modern English stylistic”. She said: “The stylistics we are discussing here is modern stylistics, a discipline that applies concepts and techniques of modern linguistics to the study of styles of language use. It has two subdivisions: general stylistics and literary stylistics, with the latter concentrating solely on unique features of various literary works, and the former on the general features of various types of language use.”² That is to say, stylistics goes beyond the linguistic description of the literature texts; its final purpose is to relate literary effects to relevant linguistic causes. It is the most explored section in the stylistic domain.                                 The style is a pattern of linguistic features distinguishing one piece of writing from another or one category of writing from another. A writer's style often varies from work to work; there is usually enough uniformity in one's article to allow the readers to observe that this overall style differs from the other's style. In the study of stylistics, the concern is mainly on the usage of stylistics, which is a discipline that studies the sum of stylistic features of the different varieties of language, the language, aspects of the speech event, language varieties and function, stylistic study and other spheres of study.

In Arnold's opinion, stylistic study is of vital importance. She illustrated the significance of stylistic study from three aspects.

First, stylistic study can help cultivate a sense of appropriateness. We know that the language usage should depend on the concrete occasions. In formal occasions, we use standard expressions. In casual context, the colloquial speeches are under considered. Therefore, we should develop a sense of appropriateness in order to choose the suitable speeches in such situations. The choice of a particular speech style is corresponding with the context. If we talk to the people who are not well educated using more formal speech style, the communication effects will be inconspicuous. Otherwise, the stylistic study is necessary to develop a sense of appropriateness.

Second, stylistic study sharpens the understanding and appreciation of literary works. Literary works use various features to achieve a particular effect or meaning. And usually the features are the representation of style of the works. However, different readers have different understanding on the features used in the literature works. In the process of discussion, a new understanding of the works begins to emerge as a more coherent description emerges. The stylistic study can sharpen the understanding and appreciation of literary works.

Third, stylistic study helps achieve adaptation in translation. All languages have different features, so in the translation process, it is not enough to transfer the original meaning of the source language but ignore the target language readers. A good translated version should be able to exert on an impact similar to that of the original text on the readers of the source language with the target language readers in style. If the original text is full of humor, the translated text should also be full of humor. If the original is ironic in tone, then the translated text should be like that too.

1. The levels of language

As a code, language is multi-leveled. There are three levels of language: the level of semantics, the levels of lexis and grammar and the level of phonology.

1) The Level of Phonology - phonology is the study of the rules for governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. It deals with the sound system of a language by treating phoneme as the point of departure. Phonological level is the expression or realization of language in its spoken form. Graphology is the study of the writing system of a language. Each language selects only a few alphabets and the selected marks are used in a limited number of combinations. Graphological level is the expression or realization of language in its written form.

2) The level of Lexis and Grammar - grammar is the science of the structure of a language and both the syntactic and semantic rules of the generally accepted used. Lexicology is the study on the choice of specific lexical items in a text, their distribution in relation to one another, and their meanings.

3) The Level of Semantics - semantics deals with the meaning system of language. It is the scientific study of the meaning of words. Besides, semantics is a very complicated and more abstract subject because it has much to do with logic, psychology and some other fields of science.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2. Stylistic analysis of the nightingale and the rose

Oscar Wilde, known for his acerbic and urbane nonfiction, was also a master of fairy tale. While some of his inimitable irony remains, Wilde created lovely tales filled with princes and nightingales mermaids, giants, and kings. In fact, all of his fairy tales are written in an erudite, aesthetic voice. As one of the representatives of Aestheticism, his fairy tales are studied as a model of Aestheticism in terms of style. Wilde showed the particular appeal of language to the readers and made the literature，the art of language more charming. His fairy tales is characteristic of making use of rhetoric means and ironic humor to convey its theme, such as love or art and the spirit of self-sacrifice as in The Nightingale and the Rose.

The Nightingale and the Rose was published in 1888. This fairy-tale has the original form and content. The Nightingale and the Rose is a very poignant story following the theme of love. The theme is conveyed in this story through the actions of the Nightingale. It demonstrates how one life would sacrifice itself in order to make another happy. From the Nightingale's point of view, this is a tragically ironic story. For she thinks that the Student must be a 'true lover' - he thinks that he would give anything for one night with the Professor's daughter. 'She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses...yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched', the Nightingale hears him cry; and on this evidence alone she bases her opinion: 'Here at last is a true lover.' When in fact the only feelings the Student has for the Professor's daughter are those of material love. He is only interested in her beauty. He says to himself 'She has form - that cannot be denied to her' but then he says 'She would not sacrifice herself for others', which is exactly what the Nightingale is about to do for him. She is willing to sacrifice her life for love; for the Student to be able to spend one night with the girl he supposedly admires. An interesting point to note is when the Student mentions that the Professor's daughter 'has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.' Now Nightingales are renowned for having beautiful voices, but the Student does not appreciate the wonderful art of music. A few paragraphs before these lines the Nightingale sings to the Student telling him of how she intends to sacrifice her life for him; 'be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood.' Although he cannot understand them, these words are, in fact, deeply meaningful to the Student. And as for music doing no 'practical good', well, what would you call the outcome of the red rose? The Nightingale died and the rose was born. Music made that red rose. The Student does not realize how wrong his judgment's are. We find out that the only 'true lover' was in fact the Nightingale. She was the only one with sincere feelings, and she was prepared to sacrifice her life for those feelings, even though she knew she would not gain anything from it. The fact that she was doing it for love, and that she was making someone happy, was enough for her. She was really the only one who deserved love - the only one worthy of it. The Nightingale was love.

She went to the greatest extremes to find a red rose for the Student to give to the Professor's daughter. She flew all around the garden trying to find a red rose. She flew to 'the centre of the grass-plot', and 'round the old sun-dial', and finally 'beneath the Students window', where she found a red rose tree. But the tree was damaged, and would not bear a red rose. The only way the Nightingale could obtain a red rose from this tree, would be to 'build it out of music by moonlight', and stain it with her 'own heart's-blood'; and that is what she did. The bird decided to kill himself just for exchanging a red rose. Tragically, the red rose ended up under the wheel of a cart, because the professor's daughter really wanted status and wealth.

The image of Student and girl (for this character author use only small letter) are opposed to image of Nightingale. Student will be able probably learn love, because he dream about it. But the girl wont, she thinks only about status and wealth. The other characters: Lizard, Butterfly, Daisy can't understand Nightingale too. Only the Oak-tree “was very fond of the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches”. He understood Nightingale and felt himself very lonely. 

 

 

Table 1. Symbolic meanings of characters

 

Character	Symbolic meaning
Red Rose	true love, which needs constant nourishment of passions of the lovers
Lizard	cynic (cynical people) cynic: a person who sees little or no good in anything and who has no belief in human progress; person who shows this by sneering and being contemptuous
Nightingale	a truthful, devoted pursuer of love, who dares to sacrifice his own precious life
Student	not a true lover, ignorant of love, not persistent in pursuing love
Oak-tree	wisdom
Girl	materialism

 

2.1. Linguistic features of the fairy-tale

Phonological features. In the description of The Nightingale and the Rose, Wilde applies onomatopoeia to make the vivid and lively description. It is very helpful to describe the different characters inner mental activities thoroughly and show the exact feelings, respectively. For example:

"The prince gives a ball to-morrow night,” murmured the young Student.

In this sentence, it is just by using the word “murmur” to show the student's feelings of grievance and helplessness. Responding to the word murmur, the word “tomorrow” may be twisted as to-morrow and the normal pronunciation of it is changed into /tu:mo rou/. Because the vowel sound /u:/ and the diphthong are usually connected with the words blue and low respectively, naturally we can imagine the student's feelings of anxiousness, fret as well as his low spirits . 

Lexical Features. The words used in the fairy story are accurate, vivid, expressive and plentiful. There is a sentence listed below to illustrate the lexical features.

Her hand will be clasped in mine.

Here, “clasp” means to hold tightly. But why does not the author use the word “grip” or “grasp”? This word is powerful enough to express the student's strongest passion and love to the Professor's daughter. And the action of the word clasp is also capable of revealing the student's eagerness as well as his beautiful daydreaming.

Syntactic Feature. The syntactic features of the fairy-tale are that the short but elliptical sentences are applied frequently. The language is very clear and easy to be understood, which makes the tale more close to the readers. It is featured by the colloquial style. Ellipsis is the omission from a sentence of words needed to complete a construction. Ellipsis in spoken English and normal everyday written discourse is usually a grammatical device for economy of words. In literature, ellipsis is not merely a grammatical means to make the work compact, but a stylistic device to express the meaning or message of the work. For example:

"No red rose in all my garden!” He cried.

"Why, indeed?" said a Butterfly.

The complete sentence should be "There is no red rose in all my garden". While "Why, indeed?" should be "Why is he weeping, indeed?" These elliptical sentences have the same expressive effect as a whole. The ellipsis here, from a stylistic perspective, seems to be multifunctional. Moreover, in this tale, Oscar Wilde also used inversion to make the languages rich and colorful. Here are some syntactic parallel constructions to show the inversion. For example:

 

    …    louder and louder grew her song

    …    bitter and bitter was the pain, wilder and wilder grew her song

     ….    fainter and fainter grew her song

The above sentences are inverted, but they are more important in view of parallelism. When we read, the tone is up and down with strong rhythm. It gives us a musical effect to the readers.

Semantic figures of speech. In this fairy-tale Oscar Wilde uses many figures of speech to accomplish the semantic expressions. Personification is a typical rhetorical device in fairy tales. In fact all the elements of nature as the trees, the Nightingale, the Lizard, the Daisy, the Moon and the Butterfly have human characteristics; for example, “the white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn”. Besides there are many similes: “His hair is dark as the Hyacinth-blossom”, “his face like pale ivory”, “like a shadow”, “as white as the foam of the sea”, “as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden”, “ as red as the feet of the dove”, “his lips are sweet as honey and his breath is like frankincense”, “her voice was like water bubbling from a silver jar”, “as the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver as the shadow of a rose in a water pool”, “like the flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of her bride”. There are some metaphors: “Flame-coloured are his wings”. Then there is also the repetition of the same sentences, the same linguistic items or syntactic structures, devices quite typical of fairy tales. Some of them are: “Night after night have I”, “If I bring her a red rose”, “Give me a red rose she cried and I will sing you my sweetest song”, “But the Tree shook its head”. A subtler device is observable in the second part of the fairy-tale when the style becomes much plainer and less poetic: this signals the reader that the romantic attitude to love represented by the nightingale is replaced by the pragmatic, even materialistic, attitude of both the student and the girl to the same feeling.

 

Conclusion

The style of the language that Oscar Wilde applied is tactful in The Nightingale and the Rose. Oscar Wilde has set a brilliant example of achieving the delicate harmony between the language and his own artistic view. For Oscar Wilde，the purest art is worthy of his life and is the highest in society. This paper mainly adopts the pattern for stylistic analysis I.V. Arnold's book English Stylistics, to illustrate this tale which may give readers a new angle to know better about Oscar Wilde's fairy-tale.

This fairy tale is very incisive and, despite its apparent simplicity, leaves the reader with a clear moral message: it is important to remember that some people sometimes sacrifice their life or suffer to help others, but at the end they aren't returned with the same emotional intensity and their actions are not even fully understood. This is a moral message that should be born clear in mind, in an age and period when most people appear to be interested only in their own welfare, without being able to look beyond their limited, subjective perspective, thus failing to see what or who is outside the borders of their very narrow egoistic world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vocabulary

appropriateness - правильность, правомерность, уместность

coherent - связный, логически последовательный

inconspicuous - не привлекающий внимания, незаметный, неприметный

omission - умолчание

onomatopoeia - ономатопея, звукоподражание; звукоподражательное слово

vivid - ясный, чёткий, отчётливый

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

1. Arnold I.V. Modern English Stylistic. - M: Flint, 2002. c. - 317.

2. Leech G.N., Short М.Н. Style in Fiction. A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. - Ldn, 2003. с. - 422.

3. Nash W. The Languge of Humour. -- Ldn; N.Y., 2005. c. - 321.

 

4. Sebeck T. Style in Language. -- Cambridge, 2001. c. - 235.

5. Wilde O. "The Nightingale and the Rose"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix.

THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE

 

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose."

From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, ands he looked out through the leaves, and wondered.

"No red rose in all my garden!" he cried, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears. "Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched."

"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. His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon his brow."

"The Prince gives a ball to-morrow night," murmured the young Student, "and my love will be of the company. If I bring her a red rose she will dance with me till dawn. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in my arms, and she will lean her head upon my shoulder, and her hand will be clasped in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall sit lonely, and she will pass me by. She will have no heed of me, and my heart will break."

"Here indeed is the true lover," said the Nightingale. "What I sing of, he suffers--what is joy to me, to him is pain. Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, nor can it be weighed out in the balance for gold."

"The musicians will sit in their gallery," said the young Student, "and play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to the sound of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her feet will not touch the floor, and the courtiers in their gay dresses will throng round her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose to give her"; and he flung himself down on the grass, and buried his face in his hands, and wept.

"Why is he weeping?" asked a little Green Lizard, as he ran past him with his tail in the air.

"Why, indeed?" said a Butterfly, who was fluttering about after a sunbeam.

"Why, indeed?" whispered a Daisy to his neighbor, in a soft, low voice.

"He is weeping for a red rose," said the Nightingale.

"For a red rose?" they cried; "how very ridiculous!" and the little Lizard, who was something of a cynic, laughed outright.

But the Nightingale understood the secret of the Student's sorrow, and she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about the mystery of Love. Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed across the garden. In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful Rose-tree, and when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest song."

But the Tree shook its head.

"My roses are white," it answered; "as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want."

So the Nightingale flew over to the Rose-tree that was growing round the old sun-dial.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest song."

But the Tree shook its head.

"My roses are yellow," it answered; "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. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student's window, and perhaps he will give you what you want."