Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney Flashcards
(37 cards)
when was this poem written?
1966
themes?
- power - this poem is about the power of nature or the powerlessness of childhood
- nature
- love - the persona of the poem has a passion and interest for nature
- time - a time in someone’s life, and change can only occur overtime
- man - this poem is about a child and human emotions
- death - the metaphorical death (the loss of innocence) is the point of this poem
what is the meaning of this poem?
- Heaney tells the tale of a child and their relationship with nature
- to start with, they are fascinated by nature and they collect ‘jampotfuls’ of frogspawn to ‘watch’
- however, one day, when the frogspawn has been replaced by the frogs, the child is terrified and loses their love for nature, showing the ‘death of a naturalist’
what is the mood of this poem?
- initially, the mood is one of fascination and passion, as shown by ‘best of all’
- however, the mood shifts to one of fear and terror as the child stumbles upon frogs ‘poised like mud grenades’, causing them to flee in panic
what was the motivation for the poet to write this poem?
- inspired by the death of his younger brother, Heaney often explores the loss of innocence in his poetry, as seen in the shift from fascination to terror in this poem
- furthermore, Heaney published this poem in the same year, he first became a father, meaning that he may have been meditating on his own childhood in rural Ireland
title: ‘Death of a Naturalist’
IMAGERY:
‘Death of a’ - this is metaphorical representing the death of someone’s passion or interest in nature; could also symbolise how things you appreciate as a child end as an adult and could be seen as a retrospective account of the loss of innocence or childhood
LANGUAGE:
‘Naturalist’ - is an expert or student of nature; someone who wants to care for their environment
‘heart Of the townland’
IMAGERY:
- having the flax-dam in the townland’s ‘heart’ stresses its importance to the community and persona
- nature and man seem to live in symbiosis
‘heavy headed’
‘weighed down’
‘huge’
IMAGERY:
- semantic field of heaviness
- the flax is heavy headed and personified in these lines
‘festered’
‘rotted’
LANGUAGE:
- language related to death and decay could foreshadowed the metaphorical death of the eponymous naturalist
‘flax-dam’ / ‘festered’ / ‘flax’
‘heart’ / ‘heavy headed’
‘sods’ / ‘sweltered’ / ‘sun’
STRUCTURE:
- the alliteration used in these lines creates a nursery rhyme tone, reflecting the persona’s youth
‘sweltered in the punishing sun’
LANGUAGE:
- nature at times is in war with itself
- the confrontational tone to this line could foreshadow the poem’s warlike ending
- although the poet is positive about nature, its potential threat is recognised in the early stages of the poem
‘Bubbles gargled delicately’
LANGUAGE:
- this oxymoron shows that the youthful persona finds pleasure in the most unusual or disgusting things, as many children do
- soundscape of the life in the pond
- personification of the bubbles
‘bluebottles’
‘dragon-flies, spotted butterflies’
‘frogspawn’
IMAGERY:
- this high image density of nature suggests it is alive and thriving, and the persona is fascinated by it as they notice so many of its aspects
- ‘bluebottles’ are also associated with death and decay
- a group of frogs is called an army which is militaristic language
‘But best of all was the warm thick slobber’
LANGUAGE:
- ‘best of all’ and ‘slobber’ are examples of childlike language, and have been used by Heaney to highlight the persona’s naivety and innocence
- ‘best of all’ is a superlative
‘grew like clotted water’
LANGUAGE:
- simile suggests that the water is thick with frogspawn which is a subversion
‘every’
LANGUAGE:
- the determiner suggests that the persona’s fascination with nature was long lasting as they collected frogspawn repeatedly of a number of years
- anecdotal
‘jampotfuls of the jellied’
STRUCTURE:
- the alliteration makes the persona’s passion seem natural - jellied substances probably belong in jam jars
- pluralisation of ‘jampotfuls’ suggests a large quantity
‘wait and watch until’
STRUCTURE:
- the alliteration draws attention to how absorbed the persona is in their passion as they would seemingly observe the frogspawn for hours
‘fattening dots burst’
IMAGERY:
- this imagery suggests nature is alive, thriving and full of energy
‘Miss Walls’
‘daddy frog’
‘mammy frog’
LANGUAGE:
- the persona’s youth and Irishness are demonstrated
- the persona’s naivety and innocence are also exemplified as they take ‘Miss Walls’ words as gospel and put total faith in what she has told them
- juvenile language
‘and’
STRUCTURE:
- the repitition of ‘and’ mimics the speech patterns of young children and also shows the persona’s enthusiasm and passion for nature in a stream of conciousness
‘rain’
LANGUAGE:
- rain usually has negative connotations
- Heaney could be hinting at something negative on the poems horizon
‘In rain.’
STRUCTURE:
- the abrupt ending of the line/stanza could foreshadow the abrupt metaphorical ‘death’ in the next stanza
- the approach towards the negative could be considered the poem’s volta
‘Then’
LANGUAGE:
- change in time to a specific event and a change in tone to something more serious, discarding its useful innocence
