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The Nightingale (fairy tale)

Literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen

Summary

Literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen

Field	Value
name	The Nightingale
title_orig	Nattergalen
author	Hans Christian Andersen
image	[[File:Nightingale 02.jpg	220px]]
caption	Illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen
country	Denmark
language	Danish
genre	Literary fairy tale
published_in	New Fairy Tales. First Volume. First Collection (Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Første Samling)
publication_type	Fairy tale collection
publisher	C.A. Reitzel
pub_date	1843

"The Nightingale" () is a literary fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Set in imperial China, the story recounts the friendship between the Emperor of China and a nightingale.

Plot

In the gardens of the imperial palace lived a nightingale whose song was more beautiful than the palace itself and was storied all over the world. When the emperor received a book from the emperor of Japan he was astonished to read about the nightingale, because he had never heard of it, nor had anyone in his court. He commanded that the nightingale be brought before him to sing. With the help of a poor kitchen girl, the nightingale was found and brought to the emperor, where he sang so beautifully that the emperor was moved to tears and made him a guest at court.

Soon after, the emperor received a new gift: a jeweled nightingale automaton that also sang. This nightingale's song was pretty, but always the same. The real nightingale, no longer appreciated, flew out of the palace while no one was looking. The emperor placed the artificial nightingale at his bedside and banished the real nightingale for his desertion. The artificial bird sang the emperor to sleep each night until its cogs wore down. The bird was repaired, but it could be played only once a year.

Five years afterward, the emperor fell ill, and one night, Death sat on his chest, showing him the deeds of his past. The emperor wished for the artificial nightingale to sing away the unpleasant memories, but it was silent. Then a song erupted through the window, where the real nightingale was perched. The song restored the emperor's health and persuaded Death to leave him in peace. The nightingale declined to become a guest in the palace again, but offered to come when he would and sing about all that he had seen in the kingdom, if the emperor agreed to keep this a secret between them.

Gallery

Illustrations by Edmund Dulac from a 1911 edition.

File:Edmund Dulac - The Nightingale 2.jpg|How common it looks, said the chamberlain File:Edmund Dulac - The Nightingale 3.jpg|The ladies took some water into their mouths to try and make the same gurgling, thinking so to equal the nightingale. File:Edmund Dulac - The Nightingale 4.jpg|The music-master wrote five-and-twenty volumes about the artificial bird. File:Edmund Dulac - The Nightingale 5.jpg|Even Death himself listened to the song and said, 'Go on, little nightingale, go on!'

Adaptations

Poetry

Sansom, Clive. "Singer and Nightingale." Return to Magic**.** Leslie Frewin, 1969.

Short stories

Tailor, Dena Bain. "The Nightingale." Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City. DAW, 2004.
West, Michelle. "The Nightingale" Once Upon a Galaxy edited by William McCarthy and Martin H. Greenberg.

Novels

Dalkey, Kara. The Nightingale. Ace, 1991.
Loftin, Nikki. Nightingale's Nest. Razorbill, 2014.
Wright, Claire. Skysong. Pantera Press, 2024.

Theatre

Giges, Bob. “The Inspiration for Nightingale”.
MacLellan, Kathy. The Nightingale (puppet show) Rag & Bone Puppet Theatre.

Music

Haken, a British progressive-metal band wrote the song “Nightingale” on its album Fauna based on the story.
Prauliņš, Uģis. Concerto for choir and recorders The Nightingale
Reynolds, Malvina. The Emperor’s Nightingale (song).
Rüttgers, Philipp. “The Emperor And The Nightingale -Twists of H.C. Andersen's Untaped Fairy Tales”.
Shu-bi-dua, a danish pop group wrote the song “Nattergalen” on their 18th self titled album, which contained songs based on various H. C. Andersen fairytales.
Stravinsky, Igor. Opera: The Nightingale (opera).
Stravinsky, Igor. Ballet: Le chant du rossignol. Stravinsky original score, Henri Matisse sets, Léonide Massine choreography.
Strouse, Charles. Nightingale: A New Musical.
DeSpain, Lisa. Tien, Melisa. Opera: Song of the Nightingale.

Animated films

Reiniger, Lotte. The Chinese Nightingale. (1927)
Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre: The Nightingale (1983) (TV)
Sporn, Michael. Nightingale. (1992)
Story Time! Pilot - Extracts from The emperor and the nightingale.
ToonJet Cartoons. The Emperor's Nightingale.
Trnka, Jirí and Milos Makovec**.** The Emperor's Nightingale (1948).
Xpress English. TV episode; radio play

Citations

General and cited references

Celenza, Anna Harwell. Hans Christian Andersen and Music: The Nightingale Revealed. Routledge, 2017.
Guroian, Vigen. “The Light of the Nightingale: The Gospel Story Resonates Throughout H. C. Andersen's Beloved Tale”.
H. C. Andersen Centre, The. “Death motif in The Nightingale”
H. C. Andersen Centre, The. “Religious motifs in The Nightingale”
Kramer, Nathaniel. "The Nightingale as Voice Object in H.C. Andersen’s Nattergalen". Scandinavica 52.1 (2013), pp. 42-70.
Popova, Maria. "How Hans Christian Andersen Turned His Heartbreak into One of the Most Beloved Fairy Tales of All Time" Brain Pickings
"Nightingale: Annotated Tale". Sur La Lune.
Zipes, Jack. "Hans Christian Andersen and the Discourse of the Dominated". Ch. 5, pp. 79–102 Fairy Tales and the Art of the Subversive.

References

Andersen, Hans Christian. [[:s:Stories from Hans Andersen with illustrations by Edmund Dulac/The Nightingale. The Nightingale]]. ''Stories from Hans Christian Andersen''. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1910.
"Song of the Nightingale".
"On Site Opera: DeSpain/Tien's 'Song of the Nightingale' {{!}} Live Music Project".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1843-short-stories anthropomorphic-birds fairy-tales-about-personifications-of-death fairy-tales-about-talking-animals fictional-birds short-stories-by-hans-christian-andersen works-about-nightingales works-set-in-imperial-china

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