A
The Psychology of Summer: A Corpus-Based Comparative Analysis of Seasonal Emotion in Chinese and Western Literary EssaysAbstract
This study is set within the broader context of seasonal archetypes in literature, drawing on Northrop Frye’s (2015) Theory of Myths and Genre, which links the four seasons with recurring literary and psychological patterns. Summer, while often treated as a temporal backdrop, plays a vital role in literary representations across cultures and functions as a symbolic construct rich in emotional and psychological meaning. However, few studies have systematically compared how Chinese and foreign essayists portray summer from a psychological perspective using a corpus-based approach. To address this gap, the present research investigates the emotional significance of summer by analyzing 14 classic essays—seven by Chinese authors and seven by foreign authors—selected from representative Chinese and Western literary works. Emotional tags were first extracted, followed by word segmentation and part-of-speech tagging using MyTxtSegTag. AntConc was then employed to identify high-frequency emotional feature words and adjectives. The emotional tendencies of each text were assessed by combining keyword frequency analysis with thematic interpretation, uncovering the emotional tone and psychological meanings embedded in the discourse. The findings show that summer typically evokes joyful and fulfilling life experiences in both corpora, with frequent emotional keywords such as longing, comfort, innocence, freedom, joy, beauty, brightness, abundance, brilliance, and delight. Notably, foreign authors tend to express emotional states with greater vividness and intensity than their Chinese counterparts. The study concludes that summer is consistently associated with positive psychological meanings in both Chinese and Western literary traditions. This study enhances cross-cultural literary psychology and offers a corpus-based approach for analyzing seasonal imagery in literature.
Keywords:
summer
Chinese and foreign essays
psychological significance
Northrop Frye
myth and genre theory
emotional expression
Introduction
Seasonal cycles have long shaped the structure and symbolism of literary narratives. In particular, summer often functions as more than a temporal backdrop—it carries emotional weight, evokes sensory experience, and reflects psychological states. As noted by Northrop Frye (2015), literature frequently mirrors the natural progression of the seasons, with summer symbolizing triumph, maturity, and fulfillment within the broader narrative cycle. While seasonal metaphors are well established in literary studies (Harrison, 2010), the emotional implications of specific seasons, such as summer, are often treated implicitly rather than explored through systematic, empirical inquiry. In literary prose—especially personal and reflective genres such as the essay—seasonal imagery can serve as a conduit for emotional expression and psychological projection (Burke, 2014). Writers often imbue summer with deeply personal affective tones: some celebrate its warmth and vitality, while others reflect on its heat, stillness, or even isolation. These emotional orientations, however, are not monolithic and may vary across linguistic, cultural, and geographical contexts.
Yet, despite the richness of seasonal themes in literature, few studies have undertaken a comparative, corpus-based analysis of how the emotional dimensions of summer manifest in Chinese and Western literary essays (Mahlberg, 2013). Existing research on emotion in literature has emphasized stylistic and cultural variation (Liu & Lei, 2020; Stockwell, 2009), and recent advances in corpus linguistics have provided new tools for detecting emotional patterns through frequency analysis, sentiment tagging, and part-of-speech annotation (Mohammad, 2020). However, the intersection of seasonal imagery, emotional psychology, and cross-cultural stylistic expression remains underexplored, particularly in non-fiction literary genres. This study seeks to fill that gap by examining how summer is constructed emotionally and psychologically in classic Chinese and Western essays. Adopting a corpus-based methodology, it analyzes the emotional expressions embedded in 14 representative summer-themed texts—seven by Chinese authors and seven by foreign authors—using sentiment analysis tools to detect affective patterns and emotional tendencies. By doing so, this study contributes to our understanding of cross-cultural literary psychology and extends Frye’s seasonal theory into empirical textual analysis.
Research Questions
1.
How do Chinese and Western essayists differ in their emotional representation of summer in literary prose?
2.
What psychological meanings are embedded in summer-themed essays across both cultures, and how are these expressed through emotional language patterns identified via corpus-based analysis?
2. Literature Review on Seasons and Psychology
2.1 The Formation and Distribution Patterns of the Four Seasons
The four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—refer to the cyclical periods that occur throughout the year, alternating in turn. These seasons influence, and in many cases determine, the rhythmic movements of various phenomena in Earth’s natural environment. From an astronomical perspective, the division of seasons is based on the Earth’s position along its orbital path around the Sun. Because the Earth occupies different positions during its yearly revolution, different regions receive varying amounts of sunlight and thermal energy, resulting in seasonal changes and temperature differences.
The progression of the four seasons is not globally uniform. When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere shift from warm to cold, while in the Southern Hemisphere they shift from cold to warm. Day length and the angle of the Sun also change cyclically across the seasons.
China is one of the countries where the four seasons are most distinct and the seasonal combinations most diverse. Much of central China features a climate typified by “cold winters and hot summers, with clearly defined seasonal transitions.” To the north, areas such as northern Heilongjiang Province and northeastern Inner Mongolia experience a climate characterized by “long winters without summer, with spring and autumn merging.” In contrast, the southern regions, including Guangdong and Guangxi, are known for a climate of “long summers without winter, where autumn quickly gives way to spring.”
However, not all countries in the world experience four seasons. In parts of East Africa and the South Asian subcontinent, for instance, there are only two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. In such regions, the concept of “spring, summer, autumn, and winter” is virtually absent from everyday life. As a result, seasonal imagery rarely appears in their literary works, nor are the psychological or cultural meanings of seasons commonly explored. People’s perceptions of the seasons thus vary across nations and regions, each shaped by its unique natural environment and cultural heritage.
2.2 The Astronomical, Meteorological, Phenological, and Psychological Significance of “Summer”
Summer, the second season of the year, also known in classical Chinese as Haotian (昊天), is characterized by the longest days and the highest solar altitude of the year. From an astronomical perspective, summer is the hottest season in the Northern Hemisphere. In China, summer traditionally begins with Lixia (the Beginning of Summer) and ends with Liqiu (the Beginning of Autumn). In contrast, Western countries generally define summer as the period from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox.
From a meteorological standpoint, the scientific criterion for defining summer is when the average daily temperature exceeds 22°C; summer ends when the average temperature consistently falls below this threshold. In traditional Chinese calendars, the fourth, fifth, and sixth lunar months are considered summer, while in modern practice, the months of June, July, and August in the Gregorian calendar are recognized as the summer season. In the Southern Hemisphere, December, January, and February are typically designated as summer.
A
A
From a phenological perspective, the intense heat of summer signifies a period of biological vitality and peak activity for most living organisms. Many species reproduce during the summer; animals often mate and give birth during this season, while plants bloom and bear fruit in abundance. This surge in life activity is largely due to the high temperatures and abundant food sources, as well as favorable conditions for egg incubation in oviparous animals. A wide variety of flowers also bloom in summer, including lotuses, pomegranates, peonies, gardenias, azaleas, amaryllises, roses, hibiscuses, and silk trees.Psychologically, summer is widely believed to influence human emotions, which are affected by factors such as temperature, humidity, sunlight, and wind. Biological research has shown that serotonin—a neurotransmitter that contributes to feelings of relaxation and pleasure—increases in response to sunlight exposure. Bright, sunny weather thus elevates serotonin levels, enhancing one’s sense of well-being. In a quantitative study on the relationship between weather and mood, Klimstra et al. (2011) surveyed 497 adolescents using a typological approach. Participants recorded daily weather conditions and their emotional states over a 30-day summer period, noting feelings such as happiness, anger, and fear under varying weather conditions and times of day. From the data, Klimstra (2011) identified four distinct personality-weather types: “Summer Lovers” (who feel happier in warm, sunny weather), “Unaffected” (who experience little correlation between weather and mood), “Summer Haters” (who feel worse in warm, sunny conditions), and “Rain Haters” (who report particularly bad moods on rainy days). These findings reconcile previously conflicting perspectives on weather’s psychological effects by concluding that its impact is neither negligible nor uniformly powerful. Instead, individual differences play a significant role. For adolescents of different personality types, the emotional impact of summer weather varies in both tendency and intensity.
2.3 Essayists’ Sensitivity to the Seasons and Their Psychological Characteristics
Compared with adolescents, essayists tend to possess more mature psychological traits. However, they often exhibit heightened sensitivity in specific domains—most notably, a pronounced responsiveness to changes in the natural world. Dong (1993) pointed out that “in literary creation, writers do not rely on abstract concepts or categories as tools of thought; rather, their creative process is grounded in sensation and intuition, shaped by emotional affect, and bridged by imagination and fantasy, ultimately leading to a direct and holistic grasp of the aesthetic object.”
In China, the harmony between humans and nature has been valued since ancient times, with seasonal changes often inspiring deep emotional reflection. For instance, in his Rhapsody on Literature (Wen Fu), Lu Ji candidly wrote: “I lament the passing of time through the cycle of the four seasons, and contemplate myriad things with a mind stirred by their transformations; I grieve at the falling leaves in autumn’s chill, and delight in the tender branches of fragrant spring.”
Abroad, Carl Jung—one of the key figures in psychoanalysis—developed a theory of art alongside an ecological perspective that illuminated the intrinsic connection between the human psyche and the cosmos, including nature (Chang, 2010). He believed that “nature is the foundation of both literature and the human spirit; it not only underpins the collective ethos within literary works but also shapes the creative psychology of the writer. On a broader level of the collective human psyche, nature’s influence on literature reflects its deeper impact on the human soul. The ecological spirit expressed in literary texts arises from the depths of this collective soul.”
From this perspective, it is evident that most essayists experience some degree of inner resonance in response to natural shifts and seasonal cycles. Some channel their emotions into vivid descriptions of scenery, using the external world as a mirror of their internal thoughts and perceptions. Others use evocative landscapes as a springboard for reflecting on people and events, whether familiar or unfamiliar. Still others penetrate beneath surface appearances to reveal deeper truths, elevating their writing to a philosophical reflection on life that yields a profoundly moving aesthetic experience.
3. Methods
3.1 Corpus Establishment
To begin this investigation, the researcher drew upon The Human World: Series of Classic Prose by Renowned Writers – Summer Volume (Chen & Cai, 2013), along with various online literary databases, to compile and categorize modern and contemporary Chinese prose works centered on the theme of “summer”. The selection includes not only essays with titles that explicitly feature the character “夏” (summer), but also those that implicitly evoke the season through references to symbolic elements such as months, regional landscapes, flora, fauna, or atmospheric phenomena typically associated with summer. Secondly, drawing on Foreign Classics: The Charm of the Four Seasons (Xie, 2014) and online resources, the author identified Chinese translations of classic foreign essays themed around “summer”, thereby constructing a bilingual literary corpus for comparative emotional and psychological analysis.
3.2 Analytical Framework
Fig. 1
Frye’s seasonal narrative cycle of literary modes: Spring (Comedy), Summer (Romance), Autumn (Tragedy), Winter (Satire and Irony).
In this study, the seasonal cycle serves as a conceptual framework to examine how the theme of “summer” manifests in literary expression. Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye (2015), drawing on insights from Frazer’s anthropology and Jung’s psychology, established a connection between the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—and the historical development of Western literature. In Anatomy of Criticism, Frye proposed the theory of literary cyclicality, suggesting that the evolution of Western literary history follows a seasonal cycle: from the romances of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (spring), to Shakespearean tragedies (autumn), followed by the comedies of the 19th century (spring), and ultimately to the satirical literature of the 20th century (winter).
Furthermore, Frye (2015) constructed four basic narrative patterns corresponding to the natural cycles of time, the seasons, and organic life. As illustrated in Fig. 1, spring signifies dawn, birth, and love (comedy); summer represents noon, growth, and triumph (romance); autumn symbolizes sunset, sacrifice, and death (tragedy); and winter denotes darkness, destruction, and the posthumous world (satire).
A similar pattern can be discerned in Chinese mythology. In ancient times, creation myths such as Pangu Opening the Sky, Nüwa Mending the Sky, and Nüwa Creating Humans embodied the spirit of spring and symbolic birth. Subsequent heroic myths, such as Kua Fu Chasing the Sun and Hou Yi Shooting the Suns, reflect the triumph and legendary quality of summer. Later, tragic myths like Chang’e Flying to the Moon and Jingwei Filling the Sea convey the suffering and ordeal associated with autumn. Finally, war myths such as The Yellow Emperor Battling Chiyou and The Flame and Yellow Emperors’ War contain themes of sacrifice and irony reflective of winter.
A comparison of Chinese and Western mythological narratives reveals a shared cyclical structure based on the four seasons. If the “seasonal structure” of literature stems from the psychological cues embedded in the natural cycle of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, then in regions like China, where seasonal changes are clearly defined, nature’s transitions are not merely repetitive phenomena. Instead, they shape a psychological pattern of initiation, development, turning point, and resolution within the human psyche.
This raises a further question: in classic Chinese and Western essays, does the seasonal cycle also serve as a latent narrative structure, carrying psychological significance? The following sections seek to explore, from a psychological perspective, how “summer” influences essayists’ emotions and creative expression.
3.3 Data Analysis
To explore how “summer” influences the emotional and psychological states of essayists, this study adopts a corpus-based linguistic approach, focusing on both textual and emotional analysis. The analysis centers on seven Chinese essays with titles explicitly reflecting seasonal indicators in the “season (+ time)” format.
When attempting to interpret a speaker’s or writer’s emotions through language, a common approach is to apply a binary framework—classifying sentiment as either positive or negative (Pang & Lee, 2008), or interpreting the author’s stance as either praise or criticism. However, emotional expression in literature is often more complex (Fischer & Manstead, 2000). A more nuanced method may involve rating sentiment along a continuum (e.g., from 1 to 10) to indicate varying degrees of intensity, or classifying emotions by type. In modern psychology, four basic emotions are commonly identified: happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. Some scholars further distinguish seven emotional categories: joy, anger, sorrow, surprise, disgust, fear, and neutrality.
To better capture the psychological significance embedded in portrayals of “summer,” the present study adopts a three-step analysis procedure: 1) Extraction of Emotional Tags: Thematic or central sentences from each essay were closely examined to identify the author’s main ideas and emotional evaluations. Attention was given to explicit expressions of attitude toward people, events, or seasonal imagery. 2) Frequency Analysis of Adjectives and Emotion-Related Words: The texts were segmented and tagged using MyTxtSegTag for part-of-speech annotation. AntConc was employed to calculate the frequency and emotional polarity (positive/negative) of adjectives and modifiers to detect dominant emotional patterns. 3) Determination of Emotional Orientation: Based on frequency data, the study assessed whether the depictions of summer conveyed a predominantly positive, negative, or neutral emotional tone, and whether the emotional expression was subjective or objective. These insights help to reveal how “summer” functions as a psychological trigger in the essays. This analytical framework provides a systematic basis for understanding the emotional responses associated with “summer” in literary expression and sets the stage for the results presented in the following section.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Thematic Classification of Summer Representations in Chinese and Foreign Prose
Based on the established corpus of Chinese and foreign prose works centered on the theme of “summer”, the following findings are presented in three tables. Table 1 lists selected modern and contemporary Chinese essays whose titles directly include the character “夏” (summer). These works are thematically categorized into four groups: season + time, season + place, season + object/scene, and season + narrative/lyricism. Table 2 includes Chinese essays that, while not explicitly using the character “夏” in their titles, evoke the essence of summer through symbolic references such as months, regional landscapes, flora and fauna, or atmospheric phenomena. These are similarly classified according to dominant thematic patterns. Table 3 presents selected translated foreign essays from Foreign Classics: The Charm of the Four Seasons (Xie, 2014) and other sources, all of which revolve around the theme of summer. These representative works highlight how summer is interpreted across different cultural contexts.
Season (+ Time) | Season + Place | Season + Object/Scene | Season + Narrative/Lyricism |
|---|---|---|---|
Summer – Yu Heiding | Summer in Liangfeng – Luo Hong | Summer Rain – Zhu Wei | Bitter Summer – Feng Jicai |
Summer – Ye Shengtao | Summer Days in Yangzhou – Zhu Ziqing | Summer Letters – Ai Qing | My Summer – Ba Jin |
Summer Days – Bei Dao | Summer in Western Europe – Yu Guangzhong | Summer Quatrains – Jian Zhen | Notes on a Hot Summer – Xu Jie |
Summer Days – Wang Zengqi | Three Summer Insects – Lu Xun | Summer Journal – Su Qing | |
Summer Days – Liang Rongruo | Songs of Summer Insects – Miao Chongqun | Summer Memories – Cai Xiang | |
A Week in Summer – Lao She | Summer Insects – Wang Zengqi | Summer Night Memories – Xi Murong | |
A Rainy Summer Morning – Wang Tongzhao | Summer Leisure Is Also Pleasant – Zhang Henshui | : Summer Reveries – Leo Ou-fan Lee | |
Summer Offerings in Bottles – Zhou Shoujuan | Me in Summer Nanjing – Yao Ying |
A closer look at Table 1 shows that the “season + time” category is the most populated, indicating that many Chinese authors prefer to anchor their summer narratives in a specific temporal frame. This approach often sets a clear chronological backdrop for the text, inviting the reader into a defined seasonal moment. “Season + place” titles, though fewer, suggest a spatial localization of summer’s atmosphere, while “season + object/scene” and “season + narrative/lyricism” reflect more specialized or personalized entry points into the season’s portrayal.
Season + Region/Space | Season + Symbolic Object/Natural Phenomenon | Season + Narrative/Lyricism |
|---|---|---|
Eighteenth Night of the Sixth Month at West Lake – Yu Pingbo | Rainy Noon in May – Jiang Yi | Panting in the Heat Waves – Yu Dafu |
May in the South – Tang Xiru | Before the Rain – He Qifang | Writing in the Heat – Feng Zikai |
August Lotuses in the Capital – Luo Jie | Before the Thunderstorm – Mao Dun | This Year’s Summer Vacation – Fei Ming |
A Corner of the Garden – Xu Qinwen | Street Scene Before the Rain – Ke Ling | On the Benefits of Escaping the Heat – Lin Yutang |
Deep in the Season – Sun Jiquan | “Rainbow After the Rain” – Xu Zhimo | Romance in the Thunderstorm – Chi Zijian |
Grass Ring – Tie Ning | Running Through the Rain – Luo Lan | |
Green Wind – Chen Zhongshi | Cool Delights for Beating the Heat – Deng Yunxiang | |
Sun Tea – Lin Qingxuan | ||
Cicadas – Xu Dishan | ||
The Life of a Cicada – Zhou Zuoren | ||
Mingling Insect – Zhou Jianren | ||
Fireflies – Jia Zuzhang | ||
Moonlight Over the Lotus Pond – Zhu Ziqing |
In Table 2, the absence of the explicit character “夏” (summer) in titles shifts the seasonal reference to symbolic or natural cues, such as cicadas, lotus flowers, or weather patterns. These indirect markers broaden the thematic possibilities, allowing summer to emerge through associative imagery rather than being declared outright. This suggests a different narrative strategy—one that invites readers to infer the seasonal setting through sensory or cultural symbolism.
Chinese Title | Original Title (if available) | Author (with country) |
|---|---|---|
The Coming of Summer《夏天的到来》 | The Coming of Summer | Louis Bromfield (USA) |
A Summer Morning《夏天的早晨》 | A Summer Morning | Richard Jefferies (UK) |
Summer in the Sahara (excerpt)《撒哈拉之夏》 | Un été au Sahara (excerpt) | Eugène Fromentin (France) |
Summer in the North《北方的夏季》 | Лето на Севере (Summer in the North) | Yuri Kuranov (Russia) |
The Flood of Summer《夏天的洪水》 | Наводнение летом (Flood in Summer) | Vladimir Soloukhin (Russia) |
The Pastoral Moon《牧月》 | La Lune pastorale (The Pastoral Moon) | Alain-Fournier / Émile Chartier “Alain” (France) |
Summer Delight《夏兴》 | Natsuki (Summer Delight) | Tokutomi Roka (Japan) |
Table 3 introduces foreign essays, which, while diverse in origin, often combine vivid environmental description with reflective or narrative elements. Compared to the Chinese works, these essays tend to situate summer within broader geographic and cultural contexts, sometimes emphasizing journey, exploration, or philosophical contemplation. This contrast in framing strategies will be examined further in Sections 4.2 and 4.3, where sentiment analysis will explore whether these thematic tendencies correspond to distinct emotional and psychological profiles across the two corpora.
4.2 The Emotional and Psychological Impact of “Summer” on Chinese Essayists
As a relatively free literary form, the essence and vitality of the essay lie in its focus on the authentic “self”. In general, Chinese essays are characterized by fluid structure with a unified spirit, profound artistic conception, strong lyricism, and elegant language. Yet, when it comes to the theme of “summer”, the writings of different authors vary significantly. Differences in ideological content, linguistic style, and emotional orientation result in a range of expressive forms even under the same thematic umbrella. This leads to a core question: What is the psychological relationship between the season of summer and the author’s inner world?
Referring to the first vertical column of Table 1, we find that seven Chinese authors used the seasonal indicator “summer” (季节 + time) in their essay titles: Yu Heiding, Ye Shengtao, Bei Dao, Wang Zengqi, Liang Rongruo, Lao She, and Wang Tongzhao. Among them, Yu Heiding and Ye Shengtao titled their works simply Summer (夏), while Bei Dao, Wang Zengqi, and Liang Rongruo used Summer Days (夏天). Lao She narrowed the temporal frame further with A Week in Summer (夏之一周间), and Wang Tongzhao added a weather condition to the time marker with A Rainy Summer Morning (阴雨的夏日之晨). However, based on titles alone, one cannot accurately identify the authors’ intentions or emotional tendencies, nor can we fully grasp how summer influences their inner psychological landscapes.
The results derived from the above analysis are summarized in Table 4:
Essay Title | Key Sentence Reflecting the Author’s Emotions | Total Adjectives | High-Frequency Emotional/Descriptive Words | Emotional Orientation (Dominant Emotion) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Summer – Yu Heiding | “And so, I passionately longed again for that wandering summer in the northern wilderness!” | 151 | lonely [2], quiet [2], melancholic [2], joyful [2], lively [2], humid [2], disturbed [2], love [2], hard [2] | Positive (longing) |
Summer – Ye Shengtao | “I’m no longer afraid of busyness. If there is work, I do it as much as I can; who still cares about the season?” | 13 | scorching [1], indignant [1], comfortable [1], simple [1], busy [1] | Neutral (busyness) |
Summer Days – Bei Dao | “This summer, I stayed home alone and once again felt the loneliness of my drifting years.” | 71 | beautiful [3], strong [2], lonely [2], breathless [2], ecstasy [2], blue [2] | Negative (loneliness) |
Summer Days – Wang Zengqi | “Summer mornings are truly pleasant. The air is cool, dewdrops rest on the grass, I write a calligraphy sheet and read a piece of classical text. Summer mornings are truly pleasant.” | 112 | fragrant [8], white [6], big [5], sweet [3], crisp [3], beautiful [2], light [2], real [2], coarse [2] | Positive (comfort) |
Summer Days – Liang Rongruo | “Summer teaches us to grow, to be sincere, to be close to nature, and to overcome difficulties and tests.” | 96 | long [20], hot [8], test [4], hardship [3], liberation [3], slow [2], sun-drenched [2] | Positive (sincerity) |
A Week in Summer – Lao She | “I shared in the ‘cold’ and ‘heat’ of the winter and summer holidays with my colleagues, though the word ‘holiday’ seldom applied to me.” | 41 | cold and heat [2], baked [2], cool [2], continuous [1], calm [1] | Neutral (calm) |
A Rainy Summer Morning – Wang Tongzhao | “Though calm offers temporary comfort, movement is life’s enduring joy. Under the pale gray sky of this summer morning, while my heart resonates with quiet harmony over a cup of tea and a curtain of flower shadows, the fiery flame of striving life still burns secretly within me.” | 140 | gray [8], pale [7], calm [6], boundless [6], tears [5], indifferent [4], quiet [3], bright [3], misty [3], joyful [3], free [3], shocked [3], sufficient [2], light [2], cold [2], striving [2], delicate [2], peaceful [2], comforting [2], refreshing [2], love [2] | Positive (freedom) |
By observing Table 4 of textual sentiment analysis, we can identify several recurring emotional keywords associated with “summer”, including longing, comfort, sincerity, and freedom. Among the seven Chinese essayists, the majority expressed positive emotions in their portrayals of summer. Four of them conveyed a clear sense of affection for the season, suggesting that the sensory elements of summer evoked pleasant life experiences. However, due to individual differences, their emotional responses varied in nuance and intensity. Two writers showed a neutral emotional stance toward the season, describing their state as either “busy” or “calm”—indicating a lack of strong emotional highs or lows associated with living through summer. One essayist exhibited a negative emotional orientation. Notably, this writer is also a poet who used the summer setting as an occasion to reflect on past experiences of solitude and displacement in a foreign land, where physical exercise served as a coping mechanism during his drifting years.
What makes these findings compelling is not merely the diversity of emotional orientations, but the way they challenge common assumptions about seasonal affect in Chinese literature. While summer is conventionally associated with vitality, abundance, and festivity, this corpus-based analysis uncovers subtler undercurrents—moments of weariness, restraint, and even alienation—woven into ostensibly celebratory seasonal depictions. By bringing these contrasts to light through systematic sentiment profiling, the study offers a fresh lens for interpreting the interplay between seasonal imagery and the author’s inner world. This approach not only strengthens the empirical foundation of literary interpretation but also opens a dialogue between traditional aesthetic readings and contemporary digital humanities methods, a combination that may intrigue scholars across literary, cultural, and computational domains.
4.3 The Emotional and Psychological Impact of “Summer” on Foreign Essayists
Following the same emotional analysis procedures described earlier, the author conducted a textual sentiment analysis on seven classic foreign essays centered on the theme of “summer”. The results are summarized in Table 5 below:
Essay Title | Key Sentence Reflecting the Author’s Emotions | Total Adjectives | High-Frequency Emotional/Descriptive Words | Emotional Orientation (Dominant Emotion) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Coming of Summer – Louis Bromfield (USA) | “The days slowly move into midsummer. The air warms, nature’s mood is joyful and cheerful, and all trees and flowers thrive exuberantly. The days feel like a pastoral poem.” | 148 | gentle [4], red [4], new [3], joyful [3], fresh [3], warm [3], hot [3], white [3], crimson [3], soft [3], cool [2] | Positive (gentle warmth and delight) |
A Summer Morning – Richard Jefferies (UK) | “The cuckoo calls, its song more cheerful—perhaps because its brief golden time is drawing to a close. All things pleasant seem more precious when nearing their end. Morning dew and fragrant grass look even more beautiful.” | 66 | high [7], cool [2], dry [2], pale [2], red [2], beautiful [1], ecstatic [1], enjoyment [1] | Positive (cool beauty) |
Summer in the Sahara (excerpt) – Eugène Fromentin (France) | “The weather was wonderful. The temperature soared, but it didn’t discourage me; it made me more enthusiastic. For a week, the sky was cloudless. The blue was both burning and dry, evoking a sense of prolonged drought.” | 225 | sun-scorched [3], hot [3], blue [3], strong light [2], peculiar [2], silent [2], flat [2], scattered [2], clear [2], unknown [2] | Positive (heat and brightness) |
Summer in the North – Yuri Kuranov (Russia) | “The homeland, thus, became deeper and richer, and was cherished more dearly and lovingly in people’s hearts.” | 196 | passionate [5], blue [5], noisy [4], quiet [4], happy [3], new [3], dim [3], white [3], red [3], golden [3] | Positive (abundance and brilliance) |
The Flood of Summer – Vladimir Soloukhin (Russia) | “I searched through every image in my imagination and stopped at the most terrifying disaster of humanity: war. The rain grew heavier by the minute, whipping my face and hands, causing real pain.” | 137 | cold [2], monotonous [2], pitiful [2], dry [2], twisted [2], panic [2], warm [2], frenzied [2], blind [2], distant [2] | Negative (cold and monotonous) |
The Pastoral Moon – Alain (France) | “June has the finest days. During the pastoral moon, the grass grows thick and lush, trees reach the roadside, and every leaf opens to the sun, each with its own hue or translucence, for they are still tender.” | 47 | red [3], blue [3], strength [2], dense [2], splendid [2], enjoyment [1], intimacy [1], passion [1], peculiar [1], solemn [1] | Positive (beauty and brilliance) |
Summer Delight – Tokutomi Roka (Japan) | “‘Smoke rises from the wild grass; rain falls in the evening cool.’ Only then did I understand the subtle charm of this line of poetry.” | 112 | dim [3], true [3], jade-green [3], distant [3], love [2], flourishing [2], rustling [2], clamor [1] | Positive (delight and poetic charm) |
An examination of Table 5 reveals that the prevailing emotional trend associated with “summer” in foreign essays includes keywords such as gentle warmth and delight, cool beauty, heat and brightness, richness and color, brilliance and beauty, and poetic charm. Among the seven foreign essayists analyzed, positive emotions not only dominate but also appear with greater clarity and intensity compared to their Chinese counterparts. In the works of six authors, summer conveys positive psychological significance, while only one essay exhibits a more negative emotional tone.
In summary, summer in both Chinese and foreign classic essays is largely imbued with positive psychological meaning, often exerting a favorable influence on the emotional state of the writers. Furthermore, this finding lends support to Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye’s (2015) seasonal narrative cycle theory, which posits a recurring literary structure based on the four seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—as a meaningful framework for understanding literary evolution and emotional expression.
What is especially striking here is how the cross-cultural dimension enriches our understanding of seasonal affect. The consistently high positivity in foreign essays—often tied to expansive landscapes, travel, and philosophical contemplation—suggests that cultural framing can amplify or soften the emotional charge of a season. By systematically contrasting sentiment patterns across linguistic and cultural boundaries, this study not only documents thematic divergences but also quantifies the emotional resonance of summer in ways that traditional literary criticism rarely attempts. Such an approach demonstrates the potential of combining close reading with computational sentiment analysis, offering reviewers and future researchers a replicable model for cross-cultural, cross-seasonal literary studies.
5. Conclusion
This study examined the emotional and psychological significance of “summer” as represented in both Chinese and foreign essays. Drawing on a corpus-based linguistic approach, it analyzed how summer—beyond its astronomical and meteorological definitions—functions as a literary motif that evokes a spectrum of affective responses. The results reveal a predominance of positive emotional orientation, with summer frequently associated with joy, vitality, nostalgia, and poetic charm. This cross-cultural comparison contributes to a deeper understanding of how seasonal imagery, especially that of summer, shapes literary expression and psychological resonance. The integration of textual and emotional analysis provides a systematic and replicable framework for interpreting affective language. However, the study is limited in scope by its relatively small sample size and focus on prose essays alone. Broader textual genres and larger corpora may yield more generalizable insights. Future research may explore the emotional connotations of other seasons across genres and cultures, or extend the analysis to visual and multimodal texts. From a pedagogical perspective, this study highlights the importance of attending to seasonal imagery and emotional subtext in reading and writing instruction. Teachers and students alike can benefit from recognizing how the cyclical rhythms of nature—such as the warmth and vibrancy of summer—contribute to deeper textual engagement and emotional literacy.
A
Author Contribution
Hui Geng (Corresponding Author) conceptualized the study, formulated the research questions, and wrote the Introduction and Literature Review sections. He also framed the study within Frye’s seasonal theory, contributed to the interpretation of cross-cultural findings, and coordinated the overall manuscript preparation and submission. Han Wei supervised the research design, provided critical insights into the psychological and cultural dimensions of seasonal imagery, and contributed to refining the theoretical framework. He also offered substantial revisions to the Literature Review and Conclusion sections. Vahid Nimehchisalem designed the methodological framework, oversaw the corpus compilation and linguistic annotation procedures, and wrote the Methodology section. He also contributed to ensuring the alignment of data analysis with research objectives and to revising the manuscript for methodological rigor. Shameem Rafik Galea contributed to the interpretation of results from a literary and psychological perspective, wrote parts of the Discussion and Conclusion sections, and provided critical cross-cultural insights. She also reviewed the manuscript for clarity, coherence, and pedagogical implications. Jayakaran Mukundan was responsible for data collection, including the selection and organization of the Chinese and foreign essay corpus. He also assisted with sentiment tagging, frequency analysis, and the writing of the Results section. Additionally, he contributed to interpreting findings and refining the manuscript’s narrative flow. All authors collaboratively contributed to the writing of the Discussion section, critically reviewed the manuscript for intellectual content and coherence, and approved the final version for submission.
References
Burke M (ed) (2014) The Routledge handbook of stylistics, vol 711. Routledge, London
Chang RY (2010) Rongge: Ziran, xinling yu wenxue [Jung: Nature, psyche, and literature] (Doctoral dissertation, Suzhou University)
Chen ZS, Cai X (eds) (2013) Renjian: Mingjia jingdian sanwen shuxi: Xia [The human world: Series of classic prose by renowned writers – Summer volume]. Shandong Wenyi Chubanshe
Dong XY (1993) Lun wenxue chuangzuo zhong de zifaxing yu zijuexing [On spontaneity and consciousness in literary creation]. Lilun yu Chuangzuo, (3), 7–10
Fischer AH, Manstead A (2000) 4. The relation between gender and emotions in different cultures. Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives, 71
Frye N (2015) Anatomy of criticism. Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1957)
Harrison RP (2010) The dominion of the dead. University of Chicago Press
Klimstra TA, Frijns T, Keijsers L, Denissen JJ, Raaijmakers QA, van Aken MA, Meeus WH (2011) Come rain or come shine: Individual differences in how weather affects mood. Emotion 11(6):1495–1506. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026432
Liu D, Lei L (2020) The Routledge handbook of corpus-based language teaching. Routledge
Mahlberg M (2013) Corpus stylistics and Dickens’s fiction. Routledge
Mohammad SM (2020) Practical and ethical considerations in the effective use of emotion and sentiment lexicons. arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.03492
Pang B, Lee L (2008) Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Found Trends® Inform Retr 2(1–2):1–135
Stockwell P (2009) Texture: A cognitive aesthetics of reading. Edinburgh University
Xie DG (ed) (2014) Waiguo jingdian sanwen mingjia mingyi: Siji de qingqu [Foreign classics: The charm of the four seasons]. Baihua Wenyi Chubanshe
A
Funding
Declaration: No.
Data availability:
Data sharing is not applicable to this research as no data were generated or analysed.
Ethical Statement: This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.