In the book by A. A. Bragina "The world of animals in the world of words "(Moscow, 1995), on page 185, it is said: "A cheerful girl, a girl, a young woman, who wakes up before dawn, is compared to a lark; she is as cheerful as a spring lark." Waking up before dawn-of course, because in Russian (as in many other languages) the lark is considered an "early bird". And in general, spring has long been represented as a new time of year, early or, in the words of A. S. Pushkin, "morning of the year". So, both spring and lark are early. So in the poem of the famous philologist, scientist and poet E. G. Babayev "The Collector of herbs" we read: "I'm very early / I came out of the house / Before the lark / And spring" (Babaev Eduard. Herb gatherer. Monologue-poem. Moscow, 1995. P. 6). And another likeness - vesela, as a spring lark - is a stable comparison characteristic of Russian speech, which is found in V. I. Dahl's "Explanatory Dictionary" and in his "Proverbs of the Russian People".
It is interesting that Andrey Bely, a connoisseur and connoisseur of figurative Russian speech, wrote in the poem cycle "The Village" (1906-1908)
page 89
the lark flutters and bursts into song immediately after the peasant girl - beauty smiled and laughed:
The damp dews will smoke
Over the wet grass.
Braids the girl in braids
Field flower: -
He will smile and laugh.
Lark-there -
As vzovitsya, will pour out
A song to heaven.
But why is a girl, a girl, a young woman compared to a spring bird? Why not a guy, not a man? After all, the word lark is masculine, and in Russian, when comparing a person with a plant or animal, the grammatical gender is usually taken into account.
A nag and a mare-that's what they say about a woman, a stallion and a gray gelding-about a man. Eagle and falcon clear-guy, swan, white swan-girl. A man is compared to a bear, and a woman to a cow. On the one hand, a chatty magpie and an old hag (that is, a crow), on the other - a sullen owl. Dovey and dovey are a woman, dov ...
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