In the Beatles song "Penny lane" there is such a verse:
Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway
Why does it say "the pretty nurse" here? She wasn't spoken about before and thus is unknown to the listener.
Thanks!
She wasn't spoken about before and thus is unknown to the listener.
Although this is one criterion for using "the", it is not the only criterion.
The song is, at the point you quote, a description of Penny Lane and the characters in it. The writers assume that the listener is aware that "the nurse" is one of the characters that everyone knows. (You will note "a portrait of the Queen", who has not been previously mentioned but "the" is used because everyone is aware of the Queen.)
The alternative is that the lyric is not "the nurse", but "a nurse" - various versions can be found on the net.
Using the definite article makes the subject in question the central focus of the scene, and the thing to which attention is drawn.
Consider the lyrics:
In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
...Of every head he's had the pleasure to have known...
...In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass...
... And in his pocket is a portrait of the queen
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray...
...And though she feels as if she's in a play...
...She is anyway
By way of analogy, if someone were to make a film of the song with the intention of following the emphasis of the lyrics, the scenes with the barber and the fireman might be static shots incorporating all the elements, but the scene with the nurse might close-up on her face and follow her with a tracking shot.
The viewer is meant to relate to her more personally, and notably, unlike the barber and fireman, we get a glimpse of her inner life and thoughts, rather than just her external interactions with the world.
The words that come after "the pretty nurse is selling poppies..." are "and though she feels as if she's in a play, she is, anyway..." which is a kind of surreal line, but the main reason it's "The pretty nurse" is that, from the point of view of the narrator, he's looking back on it in fond remembrance, and all the characters, the banker, the fireman, the barber, the nurse, are archetypes of his youth, and they remain so in his memory. It's almost as if they aren't actual people, who change over time, but are the lasting memories walking through this play the narrator talks about. It could be said that the time the characters are in, and the place itself, are forever in the narrator's mind as if in a timeless, never-changing bubble, in a play of continuous motion, which is how the narrator remembers things there. Therefore, they walk in and out as characters in a play, therefore the use of 'the' instead of 'a'- the nurse, the fireman, the banker - they're all types kept the same in his memory - in other words, HE, the narrator knows them all already, he's familiar with them all and can say, "the pretty nurse," 'oh, and here comes the pretty nurse...' since as the rememberer of this, he has previous acquaintance with them all. This is told through the narrator's internal point of view. "Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes."
