The Nightingale

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This article is about the fairy tale. For other uses, see Nightingale (disambiguation).
The Nightingale

Illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen
Author Hans Christian Andersen
Original title Nattergalen
Country Flag of Denmark Denmark
Language Danish
Genre(s) Fairy tale
Publisher C. A. Reitzel
Publication date 11 November 1843
Media type Print

"The Nightingale" (Danish: Nattergalen) is a fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about an emperor who prefers the tinkling of a music box to the song of a nightingale. The tale was first published in 1843 and is believed to have been inspired by the author's platonic relationship with opera singer and fellow Scandinavian, Jenny Lind. "The Nightingale" expresses one of Andersen's recurrent themes: the artificial versus the authentic. The story has been adapted to various media including television drama and animated film.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The Emperor of China hears that one of the most beautiful things in his own land is the song of the nightingale. He sends his courtiers to take a nightingale from the nearby forest and present her as a guest at court. The bird can communicate with the humans and agrees to come, but when the Emperor is given a mechanical nightingale covered with jewels, he loses interest in the real bird, which flies back to its home. The mechanical bird breaks down. When the Emperor is taken deathly ill, he learns only the song of the real nightingale can restore him to health.

[edit] Publication

"The Nightingale" was first published by C.A. Reitzel in Copenhagen 11 November 1843 in New Fairy Tales. First Volume. First Collection. 1844. (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Første Samling. 1844.) The tale was second in the volume that included (in contents order) "The Angel" (Engelen), "The Sweethearts; or, The Top and the Ball" (Kjærestefolkene [Toppen og bolden]), and "The Ugly Duckling" (Den grimme Ælling. The tale was re-published twice during the author's lifetime: 18 December 1849 as a part of Fairy Tales. 1850. (Eventyr. 1850.), and again 15 December 1862 as a part of Fairy Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862. (Eventyr og Historier. Første Bind. 1862.).[1]

[edit] Andersen and Jenny Lind

Andersen, 1862
Andersen, 1862

Andersen met Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (1820-1887) in 1840, and experienced an unrequited love for the singer. Jenny was the illegitimate daughter of a schoolmistress, who, at the age of eighteen, made her breakthrough as a singer with her powerful soprano. Andersen's "The Nightingale" is considered a tribute to Lind. "Farewell," she wrote him in 1844, "God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny." Andersen never married.[2]

Andersen wrote in The True Story of My Life, published in 1847, "Through Jenny Lind I first became sensible of the holiness of Art. Through her I learned that one must forget one's self in the service of the Supreme. No books, no men, have had a more ennobling influence upon me as a poet than Jenny Lind".[3]

Lind, 1850
Lind, 1850

"The Nightingale" made Jenny Lind known as The Swedish Nightingale well before she became a soprano superstar and wealthy philanthropist in Europe and the United States. Strangely enough, the nightingale story became a reality for Jenny Lind in 1848-1849, when she fell in love with the Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849). His letters reveal that he felt "better" when she sang for him, and Jenny Lind arranged a concert in London to raise funds for a tuberculosis hospital. With the knowledge of Queen Victoria, Jenny Lind attempted unsuccessfully to marry Chopin in Paris in May 1849. Soon after, she had to flee the cholera epidemic, but returned to Paris shortly before he died of tuberculosis on 17 October 1849. Jenny Lind devoted the rest of her life to enshrining Chopin's legacy, with the result that 'the emperor / composer woke up healthy' and said "Good Morning!". Still, Jenny Lind never recovered from her loss of Chopin. She wrote to Andersen on 23 November 1871 from Florence: "I would have been happy to die for this my first and last, deepest, purest love." [4]

Andersen, whose own father died of tuberculosis, may have been inspired by "Ode to a Nightingale" (1819), a poem John Keats wrote in anguish over his brother Tom's death of tuberculosis. Keats even evokes an emperor: "Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! / No hungry generations tread thee down / The Voice I hear this passing night was heard / In ancient days by emperor and clown". Keats died of tuberculosis in 1821, and is buried in Rome, a city that continued to fascinate Andersen long after his first visit in 1833. [5]

“ ...to judge Andersen from a biographical point of view only is to reduce great and challenging literature to casebook notes. Thus it is a pity to regard "The Nightingale" as simply the story of Andersen's passion for the singer Jenny Lind, when it is equally important to focus on what the tale says about art, love, nature, being, life, and death, or on the uniquely beautiful and highly original way in which these issues are treated. Andersen's works are great, but it has become customary to make them seem small. It has been and still is the task of interpreters of Hans Christian Andersen's life and work to adjust this picture and to try to show him as a thinking poet. ”

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hans Christian Andersen Center: Hans Christian Andersen: The Nightingale: Editions
  2. ^ Books and writers:Hans Christian Andersen
  3. ^ Icons of Europe, B-1380 Brussels.
  4. ^ The biography Chopin and The Swedish Nightingale by Cecilia and Jens Jorgensen (Icons of Europe, Brussels 2003, ISBN 2-9600385-0-9); as well as their in-depth research (2003-2007) in consultation with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, the National Library of Sweden, The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, and many other institutions.
  5. ^ "Did the emperor suffer from tuberculosis?", essay of 17 March 2005 researched and written by Cecilia Jorgensen, Icons of Europe] for World Tuberculosis Day.

    [edit] Analysis

    The H.C. Andersen/Jenny Lind theory has met with criticism from Lars Bo Jensen in his article "Criticism of Hans Christian Andersen" published by The Hans Christian Andersen Center in 2003:<ref>[http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/forskning/anmeldelser/kritik_e.html Criticism of Hans Christian Andersen]</li></ol></ref>

    [edit] External links

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