Death Of A Naturalist

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

Heaneys four-year-old brother died in a car accident when he was a young boy. The death affected him badly and many of his poems are about the loss of innocence. Heaney grew up on a farm in Ireland. The use of the Irish terms such as ‘mammy’ reflect this

Question 2

Form/Structure

Answer 2

The poem has the first person narrator who is reflecting on the childhood. It is written in blank verse which makes the poem sound controversial. The lack of a rhyme scheme might suggest that change is not always predictable.

The poem has two stanzas and each one representing a different attitude towards nature. The first stanza is about the narrators childish enthusiasm and how he enjoys nature. The last stanza is about his loss of innocence and understanding of the dangers of the world. Nature seems dangerous and threatening as well as unfamiliar

Question 3

flax-dam

Answer 3

festered

Question 4

Poised

Answer 4

like mud grenades

Question 5

sickened,

Answer 5

turned, and ran

Question 6

The great

Answer 6

slime kings were gathered there for vengeance

Question 7

angry

Answer 7

frogs invaded the flax-dam

Question 8

Then

Answer 8

Volta in the poem

Question 9

warm,thick

Answer 9

slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water

Question 10

bluebottles

Answer 10

wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell

Question 11

if I

Answer 11

dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it

Question 12

Bubbles

Answer 12

gargled delicately