the nightingale and the rose
One of my favorite of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales is the tragic story of the nightingale and the rose , one of a large number of accounts which emphasize the bloodiness of the red rose, and explore the notion of ‘painting’ a white rose red (another famous exploration of this concept can be found in Alice in Wonderland , also an exploration of pointlessness of human endeavor, where the Red Queen’s servants are charged with the difficult task of painting all white roses in the garden red). Read the whole story (I recommend it highly) here As I have been composing posts for my rose week giveaway drawing , i have realized that it is interesting how the vast history of the rose contains so many aspects of human existence—sex (i.e. bed of roses), eroticism (i.e. la roman de la rose), exoticism (China, Moroccan, Damask roses) death (i.e. the killer rose brambles and thorns surrounding Sleeping beauty’s castle), aesthetic death (The Rose and the nightingale), sacrifice (Christ’s ...