Final answer:
In 'The Nightingale and the Rose,' the Nightingale symbolizes the selflessness of true love and the sacrifices that love can entail, showing true love's boundless, transcending nature and its potential for great sacrifice.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose," the Nightingale symbolizes two main things: the selflessness of true love and the sacrifice that love often entails.
Firstly, the Nightingale is willing to give her life for the Student's happiness, showing the depth of her compassion and the selfless nature of true love. She builds the symbol of his love, the red rose, not from mere flora, but from her own life force, as she sings and presses her breast against a thorn.
Secondly, the bird's death illustrates the ultimate sacrifice one might make in the name of love, more so because this sacrifice is made for a love that is not hers, but for the love of another.
Wilde uses these symbolisms to impart upon his readers the profound narrative that true love is boundless and transcending, yet can often demand the greatest of sacrifices.