Abstract: Death is the final destination and the inevitable fate of all living things. The  doom of death grants itself mysterious color, and threatens the living human beings. However, it is exactly death that makes people appreciate the transient life. Love, as well as death, is the eternal theme in literature. Oscar Wilde fuses his thoughts of love and thoughts of death in “The Nightingale and the Rose”. The nightingale has the virtue of kindness. But it is just this virtue that leas to her doomed death. In order to let her death bring emotional impact to the readers, Oscar Wilde uses the aesthetic methods to construct the beauty of death.

Key words: death; love; kindness; aesthetic methods

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Introduction to Oscar Wilde-1

1.2Introduction to Aestheticism. 1 

1.3 Introduction to Wilde’s Fairy Tales-2

2. The Modes of Death in “The Nightingale and the Rose”-3

2.1. The Death for Kindness-3

2.2. The Death for Love-3

3. The Aesthetic Methods Employed to Construct the Beauty of Death-4

3.1 Color Aesthetics-4

3.2. The Beauty in Image-5

3.3 The Symbolization of the Nightingale-6

4. Conclusion-7

Bibliography-7

Acknowledgments-9