Setting

“The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde is set in a timeless, placeless fairy-tale setting, in a time of princes and balls, in what seems to be a magical garden where most of the natural elements seem to speak and think.

Physical setting

Consequently, the main physical setting is represented by the garden in which the Nightingale lives and where the Student also has his room. Another element of the physical setting is the Professor’s house, where the woman the student desires lives in.

What is important to note about the physical setting of the garden is that it is animated and personified; the trees and animals talk, think and feel, just like human beings. But the author also offers very vivid descriptions of these natural elements, such as in the following example:

Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed across the...

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Social setting

The social setting illustrates two worlds, the world of men and the world of plants and animals which mirrors that of men, but is filled with certain magical and idealistic traits.

In the world of animals and plants, like in the world of men, there are some beings who are idealistic (the Nightingale) and some who are cynical (the Lizard), while other elements show friendship, pain, pity (the trees, the Nightingale).

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