The Nightingale (Hedeby)

The Nightingale

The Nightingale (Danish: “Nattergalen”) is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tales The Nightingale (Danish: “Nattergalen”) is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. Published in 1843, it recounts the story of a Chinese Emperor who is persuaded by his peasantry to seek out a legendary nightingale, known for its beautiful song. The Emperor ends up replacing the real nightingale with an artificial, mechanical bird that is encrusted with jewels. The Nightingale has been adapted into other forms of entertainment, including a television drama, ballet, and opera.

• The Emperor with the Mechanical Nightingale
  The Emperor with the Mechanical Nightingale

Authorship and sources

This literary fairy tale was written by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, to a middle class family on April 2, 1805. His father was a free thinker, while his mother was deeply religious and superstitious. His parents’ contradicting viewpoints greatly influenced him and sparked his imagination. At the ripe age of fourteen, Andersen left Odense and traveled to Copenhagen, in hopes of joining the Royal Theatre. He struggled for a long time to find a way to achieve his dream. One day, Andersen happened to come across a dinner party being held by Giuseppe Siboni, a well-known voice teacher and opera director. Andersen convinced the cook to let him in, and he auditioned for Siboni, who agreed to take him under his wing, allowing him to experience bourgeois Danish society for the first time.

Andersen’s voice started to change with age, so he began writing stories instead. He sent his stories to Jonas Collin, a man who ran the king’s government at the time. Collin later influenced the king to fund Andersen’s education. Andersen would later describe his time enrolled in school as one of the darkest times of his life due to the criticism he faced at the hands of an abusive teacher. In The Nightingale, Andersen uses his experiences with the bourgeois class and his struggles with his education as inspiration. His writings reflect the influence of literary Romanticism, as evidenced by the themes he explores and his characterizations of his stories’ central figures.

Synopsis

Prelude

This fairy tale takes place in China and the events of the story reportedly happen many years ago. The narrative describes the emperor’s palace as the most magnificent palace in the whole world, with gardens that are “artfully laid out.” However, the untamed forest surrounding the garden and the palace houses the revered nightingale, which is rumored to sing an otherworldly tune, so beautiful that even poor fishermen can admire it. Everyone who visits the city praises the palace and the garden, yet when they hear the nightingale's song, they deem it the best of all. People write poems and stories about the nightingale and repeat them all across the world. The emperor pays attention to the rumors of this glorious bird because he has never seen or heard it before. He then orders his Cavalier to go out and retrieve the magnificent bird so that he can hear the song for himself.

The Cavalier asks around the palace, but no one has heard of the nightingale. He returns to the emperor and tells him that he shouldn’t believe everything he reads in books. The Emperor says that the source was the Emperor of Japan, so therefore, the nightingale must exist. He then commands the Cavalier once more to find the bird; otherwise, everyone in the court will be “thumped on the stomach.” The court then joins the Cavalier in frantic search of the mysterious bird. Finally, they come across a poor kitchen maid, who tells them that she knows where the nightingale lives because she hears it when she walks back from her sick mother’s home by the beach. The Cavalier arranges a time for the kitchen maid to show him and his search party the nightingale’s whereabouts.

Nightingale's Captivity

While searching for the nightingale, the party mistakes several sounds from nature as the nightingale’s song. First, they think that the lowing of cows is the nightingale, then they mistake the croaking of frogs for the bird’s resonant song. When the courtiers and the Cavalier finally come upon the nightingale, they are astounded to hear it sing so beautifully while possessing such an unassuming appearance. The nightingale tells them that its song sounds best out in the open, but willingly goes along with the Cavalier, upon learning of the emperor’s desire to hear it sing.

Back at the palace, the great hall has been thoroughly decorated for the arrival of the fabled songbird, including a golden perch for it to stand on while singing to the court. When it first sings, the nightingale’s tune brings tears to the emperor’s eyes, prompting him to honor the bird with a golden slipper. The nightingale, proud of its accomplishments, sings again, pleasing everyone. Because of the nightingale’s popularity, the court decides to keep it in a cage, allowing it only two walks per day. These short periods of freedom do not please the bird, as it prefers the openness of nature. Immediately following its performance, the nightingale becomes the talk of the town, garnering attention and renown from everyone in the city.

Introduction of the Mechanical Nightingale

One day, the Emperor of Japan delivers a package to the Emperor of China. Inside the box is a mechanical nightingale, encrusted with jewels, that can be wound up and sing one of the real nightingale’s songs. A ribbon adorns the neck of the mechanical bird, which reads “the nightingale of the emperor of Japan stands but poorly beside that of the emperor of China.” The mechanical bird receives praise and the emperor dubs it the Supreme Imperial Nightingale Bringer. The emperor asks for a duet of the real nightingale with the artificial nightingale, but this performance never occurs. The real nightingale doesn’t follow the exact formula the mechanical bird is programed to follow, as the Master Musician points out. The artificial bird sings alone thirty-three times and pleases everyone. The emperor decides that he wants to hear the real nightingale sing, but while the mechanical nightingale sings, the real bird flies out the window. At this, everyone remains unbothered because they believe that best bird remains with them. The mechanical bird is not only beautiful but also able to calculate its next move precisely and predictably, unlike the real nightingale. Everyone agrees and the emperor decides that the new nightingale should be introduced to the public next Sunday.

The Master Musician reveals the bird to the public, and all but the poor fisherman agrees that it is better than the old nightingale. The fisherman can’t help but feel as if something is missing. The real nightingale is banished from the empire, and the emperor keeps the mechanical bird by the left of his bedside, closest to his heart. The mechanical bird becomes famous throughout the empire and books are written about it. For a whole year the bird is held in high esteem, and its music is heard many times to the point that the emperor, the court, and the public all know its song by heart and can sing along.

One evening, as the bird is singing the emperor to sleep, something inside the bird breaks. The emperor frantically calls for the Imperial Physician, and then the watchmaker, who is able to fix the bird partially. However, nothing can be done to repair the mechanical bird fully. From then on, the bird can only be played once a year. The Master Musician assures everyone that the mechanical bird is still as good as it was before, and everyone agrees.

Ending/Emperor's Battle with Death

Five years pass, and the emperor has fallen ill to the point everyone in the court believes he will die. The court pays their respects to the new emperor, the palace maids have a coffee party, and the menservants talked about the unfortunate fate of the old emperor. The emperor’s cold and barely breathing body is left alone, in a painfully quiet chamber. The mechanical bird sits silently on his bed-stand and death sits on the emperor’s chest. Death decorates itself with the emperor’s crown, golden sword, and a magnificent banner. Death shows the emperor all of the good and bad deeds of his life, which causes him distress. The emperor pleads for the mechanical bird to sing, in hopes that the fake bird can soothe him, but the artificial nightingale remains silent, because no one is there to wind it up. Death continues to stare into the emperor's eyes and the room becomes terrifyingly quiet.

All of a sudden, the real nightingale appears in the emperor’s bedroom window and starts singing a beautiful song. The real bird heard of the emperor’s ailments and came to help alleviate his pain. The real nightingale continues to sing and is able to sing away death. The emperor is grateful to the real nightingale and asks what he can do to repay the bird. The nightingale responds by saying he has already been paid by the emperor when the emperor cried the first time he heard the nightingale sing. The emperor asks the real nightingale to stay by his side, singing whenever the bird wants. In exchange, the artificial nightingale will be destroyed. The nightingale declines and instead tells the emperor to keep the artificial bird because it did what it could. The real nightingale belongs in nature where it will fly far and wide to sing for the poor fisherman, the peasant, and everyone far away from the court. The real nightingale assures the emperor that he will continue to come and go from the branch outside the emperor's window. The nightingale will sing for the emperor because the bird values his heart more than his crown. In return, the emperor must promise the bird not to tell anyone about the nightingale that sings to him. The emperor agrees and and the bird flies away. The servants enter the emperor’s bedchamber, expecting to tend to his dead body, but to their surprise, the emperor greets them by saying “Good Morning!”

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  Emperor Close to Death

Analysis and Themes

Nature vs. Civilization

One of the main themes of The Nightingale is the battle between nature and culture, the belief that nature is where genuine art and beauty originate. Andersen heavily romanticizes nature throughout the story to emphasize this message. In the beginning of the story he describes the nightingale and the beauty of its song and how the fishermen (instead of the bourgeoisie) have experienced it. The people who work out in nature witness this beauty on a regular basis, and the Emperor has to leave his castle, which could be a metaphor for leaving culture, to discover the nightingale. Shortly after he brings the bird back and forces it to adapt to culture, the Emperor of Japan grants the Emperor of China a mechanical one, and soon, he and his court value this fake bird over the real one. The birds in this instance represent nature versus culture directly, and the nightingale reveals that Andersen believed the bourgeoisie tended to favor culture, in the form of fake nature, over real nature and real beauty. At the end of the story, the real nightingale saves the Emperor from death, and he has an epiphany that nature, which is real, is superior to culture, which is essentially artificial and inferior. True to the style of literary Romanticism, nature represents real art in this story, as opposed to what the upper class appreciates as beauty, which is culture.

Real vs. Artificial

During the Romantic period, writers such as Andersen rejected the ideals of previous Enlightenment thinkers, who viewed civilization as a wellspring of genius, truth and creativity. Enlightenment authors upheld social hierarchies, whereas Romantics believed that poets and artists were purveyors of truth and originality. Literary Romanticism viewed civilization not as a source of inspiration but rather as a corrupting influence to be critiqued and approached with skepticism. Thus, Romantics like Andersen frequently departed from civilization’s influences by extolling the glory of the natural world in their writings. This philosophy and outlook pervade The Nightingale. The Emperor and his court abandon the living, breathing nightingale, in favor of the embellished mechanical one, upholding inauthenticity as superior. However, the peasants, who Romantics viewed as closer to nature and true enlightenment, see through the flaws and imperfections of the artificial bird. Eventually the artificial nightingale breaks down and reveals its limitations. Ultimately, it’s the real nightingale that frees the emperor from the clutches of death, indicating the Romantic view that true liberation, true life can be found only in the purity of nature. Furthermore, the emperor’s gardens represent nature that has been fashioned and tamed by human hands, while the nightingale’s supernatural song resonates from the untouched forest beyond the palace grounds. This representation suggests that humanity must venture beyond its corrupt, adulterated institutions to find authentic beauty and truth, and gain insight that is both pure and enlightened. The Nightingale is a masterwork of the fairy tale genre but scholars also view it as a prime example of literary Romanticism’s tenets and approach to artistic production.

Meta-Story

The Nightingale is also an example of meta-fiction; it is a work of art that comments on the role of art in society. As previously mentioned, Andersen believed that the bourgeoisie could not appreciate or identify high art because they were so deeply immersed in a corrupt society, severed from the concerns of the working class and the inherent beauty of nature. For example, the Courtier and his search party cannot discern the song of the nightingale from other sounds because they are so far removed from the untamed world outside the palace walls. They must rely on information from palace workers and other peasants, who spend more time in nature, to discover the location of the nightingale and the wonder of its gorgeous voice. Likewise, the emperor and his court grow enamored with the artificial nightingale and banish the real one from the kingdom, believing that the true nightingale’s imperfections render it inferior to the Emperor of Japan’s gift. However, they grow sorely disappointed when the fake nightingale breaks down, leaving them disillusioned and without a song to hear. Andersen asserts through his fairy tale that the source of beauty resides outside the confines of culture; he uses his art, a story, to reveal his belief that the upper classes must look past their broken cultural milieu and institutions to rediscover the plight of the peasants and the inherent beauty in the world around them.

Impact

The Nightingale is one of Andersen’s stories in his Nye Eventyr or “New Fairy Tales” collection, which was received well by critics and became fairly popular, giving him more fame and success as an author. This story may have helped the success of Jenny Lind, a Swedish opera singer, who had achieved fame before the story was published, but became even more famous after it was released. She is thought of as the inspiration for the story, as she was already known as the “Swedish Nightingale”, and Andersen held unrequited romantic feelings for her. The Nightingale may itself be a response to Andersen’s critics, who he thought at times were harsh, and did not understand the meaning he wove into his stories. The story reflects this idea through its message that the upper class bourgeoisie do not understand true art, as they prefer the mechanical nightingale over the real one.

Adaptation

The Emperor’s Nightingale is a 1949 animated film adaptation of Andersen’s The Nightingale. The film was released in the former Czechoslovakia and directed by Jiří Trnka and Miloš Makovec. This live-action adaptation is in stop motion animation. Jiří Trnka was well-known for creating elaborate puppets and showcasing them in his films. The animation is also well-regarded for its film score by classical composer, Václav Trojan. The Czech film was narrated in English by Boris Karloff, an English actor, upon the film’s release in the United States. The movie tells the fairy tale of The Nightingale by Hans Chrsitian Anderson, but spins the story by telling it from the perspective of a little rich boy. The little boy dreams the fairy tale and makes his toys and surroundings the stars of his dreams. In addition, the Chinese emperor takes the form of the little boy. Considering this story was adapted in communist Czechoslovakia, themes of freedom and longing against rules and restrictions populate the film.

References

• H.C. Andersen Centret.” Criticism of Hans Christian Andersen,

https://andersen.sdu.dk/forskning/anmeldelser/kritik_e.html

• “History of Nightingale.” SurLaLune Fairy Tales: History of Nightingale,

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/nightingale/history.html

• “The Emperor's Nightingale.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 15 Apr. 1949, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043410/