The Countryside in Summer
Summer has come, with its warm sunny days, making us thing of all sorts of nice things, such as holidays in the country, picnics and haymaking①parties.
When Spring came, she found the earth cold and bare, but she soon changed all that, and by the time Summer arrives, the world is a very different place. It is a green world now, green leaves on the trees, green grass in the fields, green plants crowding in the hedges②, and flowers opening everywhere.
The days are long and the nights are short, for the sun gets up early and goes to bed late in sunny June. It is one of the best and brightest months in the year. Birds sing from sunrise till long after sunset.
As night falls, one after another the birds stop their singing, and after a few last sleepy sounds, put their heads under their wings to rest for an hour or two before beginning again. They do not all sleep, however. When other birds are silent, comes a soft cry, then, after a few moments, another, louder this time; and soon the nightingale③ pouring out his wonderful song.
Not only at night does the nightingale sing. On almost every warm day in early June, the little brown bird sings away in the roads and woods, but, as all the other birds are also singing at the same time, we do not notice his voice so much. It is at night, when he has the field all to himself, that we hear the nightingale at his best.
【詞語解釋】
?、賖aymaking ['hei?meikiR] n.制備干草
?、趆edge [hedN] n.(矮樹的)樹籬
?、踤ightingale ['naitiRgeil] n.夜鶯
【寫作指要】
1)本文作者抓住“綠的世界”和“歌的晝夜”從視覺描寫到聽覺描寫給讀者描繪了一幅生機勃勃的夏日農(nóng)村的美景。
2)第二段里“green”一詞的多次重復使“綠的世界”深深留在人們的心里。在第三、四、五段里,作者把“歌聲”這一概念用不同的詞表達出來,如“sing”,“song”,“sounds”,“cry”,“pouring out”,“singing”,“voice”等,如此同義照應,使語義上下連貫,同時也加強和突出了“夜鶯歌唱”的主題。
3)本文作者使用了擬人(personification)手法,文章顯得格外生動:第二段Spring和Summer兩個詞首字母大寫,用“she”指代“Spring”;第三段中的“gets up”和“goes to bed”,“birds sing”;第四段中的“sleep”,“cry”;第五段中的“his voice”,“he”和“himself”都是擬人用法。
4)為了使描寫生動優(yōu)美,作者使用了分詞短語“making us think of…”,獨產(chǎn)主格結構“green leaves on the trees…flowers opening everywhere”,省略句法“then, after a few moments, (comes) another (cry),(which is) louder this time”,以及傳神的短語“all to himself”和“at hisbest”等。