Use Of Descriptive Language In The Nightingale And The Rose

“Good writing” is not simply defined by proper grammar, spelling, or style. It is far more than sentence construction and plot structure. Good writing utilizes thoughtful imagery and eloquent text to capture the audience’s interest. Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Nightingale and the Rose” and Kenneth Burke’s essay “The Definition of Man” implement vivid narration and descriptive language to enthrall the reader. Through the use of metaphors and symbolism, both authors create compelling subject matter. This essay will argue that despite differences in genre, Oscar Wilde and Kenneth Burke exemplify good writing by giving symbolic meaning to words, utilizing metaphor, and appealing to the reader’s senses through the use of descriptive language

Wilde had an extraordinary ability to incorporate characteristics of both fantasy and realism into his works. His work “The Nightingale and the Rose” explores the theme of self-sacrifice and examines the nature of love through symbolism. Wilde uses many rhetorical devices, the most evident being personification, to give non-human objects or animals human characteristics. In fact, all the elements of nature such as the trees, the Nightingale, the Lizard, the Daisy, the Moon, and the Butterfly have humanlike qualities. For instance, in the line “the tree shook its head” (Wilde 3), Wilde makes use of personification to give the tree behaviors and characteristics exhibited by human beings. Wilde’s use of personification brings a fairytale-like aspect to the story and aids readers to react emotionally to the non-human

Burke applied analogies to his essays in order to help the reader comprehend his theories or notions. Kenneth Burke 's “Definition of Man” states: "Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative), separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order), and rotten with perfection" (Burke 16). Burke uses descriptive language to build the reader’s interest and analogies to imaginatively make his points clear. Burke differentiates man from other animals by drawing an analogy between man and birds. He argues that unlike birds, which cannot use symbols to interconnect, man is able to use language towards logical ends. Burke brilliantly utilizes analogies to provide a way to assist the reader’s understanding of new concepts and