Death of a Naturalist

Question 1

Who was the author of a death of a naturalist?

Answer 1

Seamus Heaney

Question 2

Summarise the poem

Answer 2

• Opening stanza focuses on the persona’s memory of collecting frogspawn as a child from a flax dam
• It fascinated him and he writes about his childhood wonderment at the ‘warm, thick slobber’ and how he filled jam jars with it, took it home + to school where his teacher taught the class about frogs
• Second stanza = tone changes; persona begins to describe how ‘one hot day’ the dam was invaded by angry frogs whose croaking filled the air
• This frightened and sickened him so much that he ran away with fear

Question 3

What are the main themes that are present in the poem?

Answer 3

Nature
Loss
Loss of innocence
Time

Question 4

Describe the form and its impact on the poem

Answer 4

• Written in the first person
• Written in blank verse
• Iambic tetrameter not always secure
• Lots of enjambment conveying persona’s enthusiasm and nature’s inability to be constrained

Question 5

What is the impact of the insecure iambic pentameter?

Answer 5

→ often spills into 11 syllables
→ could reflect the richness of nature and unpredictability of change

Question 6

What is the impact of the first person and blank verse?

Answer 6

→ intimate and conversational tone
→ allows reader to connect with speaker’s emotions and reflections
→ allows Heaney to convey the natural flow of the speaker’s thoughts and experiences

Question 7

Describe the structure of the poem and its impact. Include:
- impact of stanza 1
- impact of stanza 2
- how they are different from each other

Answer 7

• Poem deliberately split into two stanzas that recall contrasting incidents
• First stanza: mainly on the childish wonderment and secure relationship with nature
  → at times, some negative language that foreshadows the change
• Second stanza: shifts in tone, showing a fractured relationship with nature
  → feels like a sudden shift (volta)
  → nature now unfamiliar and threatening: darker and more ominous

Question 8

Describe the language of the poem and its impact

Answer 8

• Childhood imagery used to convey the youth and innocence of the speaker
• Synaesthesia: combining all five senses at once
  → wealth of sensory imagery conveys the richness and abundance of nature
• Contrast used to reveal the troubled relationship that develops with nature
  → imagery of life and beauty contrasts with imagery of decay, repulsion and death to show this change
• Military imagery and personification demonise the frogs, contributing the threatening and harmful representation of the natural world
• Onomatopoeic words used to create strong impressions of the sound

Question 9

What are the semantic fields within the poem?

Answer 9

• decomposition
• life and death
• violence
• life and beauty

Question 10

What is some context behind the writer?

Answer 10

• Poem is based off of heaney’s childhood in northern ireland
• His 4 year old brother died in a car-accident when he was a young boy
• The death affected him badly and many of the poems he wrote are about the loss of childhood
• He grew up on a farm
• He had a strong Roman Catholic upbringing which might imply that the poem is about sexual maturity, with the initial naive description of the mammy and daddy frogs contrasted with the repulsive images late, inherently reflecting the church’s taboo attitude to sex and reproduction, and the guilt associated with it

Question 11

What is the symbolism in this poem?

Answer 11

Frogs could be metaphor for life
Stanza 1 - pre-brother’s death: was all happy and ignorant
Stanza 2 - after the death: ignorance stripped away, now has to face real life

Question 12

Complete the quote
‘All year, the…

Answer 12

…flax damn festered in the heart’

Question 13

Analyse the quote
‘All year, the flax dam festered in the heart’

Answer 13

→ ‘festered’ imagery of decay, could foreshadow metaphorical death of speaker’s innocence
→ ‘all year’ could potentially link to cycle of life
→ ‘heart’: central place in the townland; important to the speaker and the town
→ alliteration creates nursery rhyme tone, reflective of youth

Question 14

Complete the quote
‘punishing…

Answer 14

…sun’

Question 15

Analyse the quote
‘punishing sun’

Answer 15

→ nature, links to cycle of life and death
→ summer is relentless and harsh
→ unsettling mood, hints at the shock the speaker will receive as the poem continues

Question 16

Complete the quote
‘Best of all was the warm, thick…

Answer 16

… slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water’

Question 17

Analyse the quote
‘Best of all was the warm, thick slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water

Answer 17

→ ‘best of all’ - youthful fascination + reflects upon the simplicity and purity of childhood innocence
→ ‘slobber’: childlike quality that adds to speaker’s fascination
→ sensory imagery used to reinforce child-like fascination
→ ‘frogspawn’ significant of childhood, but it could also be representative of the journey you (and the frogs) must go through to become adults
→ ‘clotted’: could either be clotted cream, which is sweet and nice, or blood clots, which is scary
→ enjambment used to show that all of the memories blend together

Question 18

Complete the quote
‘Yellow in the sun…

Answer 18

…brown in the rain

Question 19

Analyse the quote
‘Yellow in the sun, brown in the rain

Answer 19

→ fragmented line representative of his childhood breaking away
→ he is distancing himself away from nature
→ could be reflective of his brother’s sudden death
→ ‘sun’ = happy
→ ‘rain’ = sad
→ change of frogs could reflect the speaker changing from a child to an adult
→ structurally, the short sentence of ‘in rain’ acts as an abrupt change in the atmosphere and mood
→ comes just before the volta

Question 20

Complete the quote
‘Angry…

Answer 20

…frogs invaded’

Question 21

Analyse the quote
‘Angry frogs invaded’

Answer 21

→ the speaker is now aware of the dangers of the world
→ the realistic, brutal and militaristic language provides a complete contrast from the first stanza, which signifies that he has grown up
→ ‘angry’ adds a layer of complexity to the natural world, as now his perception isn’t all positive
→ ‘invaded’ conveys a sense of conflict and intrusion
→ suggests a more threatening interaction between the speaker and the frogs
→ metaphor for hormonal, aggressive boys who are undergoing puberty: the frogs (+ boys) used to be more fascinating and cuter, but have now changed

Question 22

Complete the quote
‘poised like…

Answer 22

…mud grenades’

Question 23

Analyse the quote
‘Poised like mud grenades’

Answer 23

→ could reference the violence overtaking northern Ireland at the time, showing how the violence of adult life destroys the innocence of childhood
→ sentence length is shortening and the pace quickening as the end of the poem approaches

Question 24

Complete the quote
‘The great slime kings…

Answer 24

…were gathered there for vengeance’

Question 25

Analyse the quote
‘The great slime kings were gathered there for vegeance’

Answer 25

→ ‘great slime kings’: represents a transformation in the speaker’s perception of the frogs
→ once innocent and fascinating creatures, they now take on a more menacing and powerful presence
→ ‘king’: implies hierarchy in the natural world
→ ‘vengeance’: like revenge?
→ ‘slime’: disgusting and repulsive } indicative that the naturalist in him is no longer

Question 26

Complete the quote
‘If I dipped my hand…

Answer 26

…the spawn would clutch it’

Question 27

Analyse the quote
‘If I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it’

Answer 27

→ ‘clutch’: just as a child has the instinct to clutch things, the spawn will clutch his hand
→ almost as if he is saying that if he tries to interact with his past it will consume him } could reference the trauma of his brother’s death
→ he knows he won’t be able to escape from the ‘angry frogs’ } loss of innocence