Death of a Naturalist Flashcards
What is Heaney described as?
‘The most important Irish poet since Yeats’
Where was Heaney born?
Tamniaran - northern Ireland
What was Heaney surrounded by a lot of?
Nature
Who, close to Heaney, was killed and when?
His brother Christopher was killed in 1953/1954.
When was Death of a Naturalist written?
1966.
What was happening in Ireland during the time it was written and how does the poem show this?
The ‘troubles’ which split Irish society, hence the 2 distinctive stanzas - one full of innocence, one full of violence.
Which 2 ‘lost worlds’ does the poem reflect?
The narrator’s lost world of innocence but also a lost world of Irish life and identity.
Heaney became a leader for a new kind of romantic poetry which included what?
Poetry in which nature/the natural world are used to describe emotion and phsychology.
What 3 poems are good to compare Death of a Naturalist with?
-To Autumn/Hawk Roosting
-The Prelude/Afternoons
-Dulce/Mametz Wood
Give 4 features of the poem’s form and their effect:
It’s written in first person and blank verse which makes it sound personal and conversational. Iambic pentameter is not always secure with it often over-spilling 11 syllables, perhaps reflecting the richness of nature and unpredictability of change. Enjambment conveys the narrators enthusiasm as well as nature’s inability to be constrained.
‘All year the ____ -____ ____ in the ____ of the ____;’
‘All year the flax-dam festered in the heart of the townland;’
‘Flax had ____ there.’
‘Flax had rotted there.’
‘Daily it ________ in the ________ sun.’
‘Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.’
‘Bubbles _______ delicately’
‘Bubbles gargled delicately’
‘___________ wove a ____ gauze of ____’
‘bluebottles wove a strong gauze of sound’
‘There were ______-_____, _______ ___________,’
‘There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,’
‘But ____ of ____ was the ____ ______ _______ of _______ that grew like _______ _____’
‘But best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water’
‘Here, ______ ____ I would fill _________ of the ______ specks to ____ on _____-_____ at _____, on shelves at _____,’
‘Here, every spring I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied specks to range on window-sills at home, on shelves at school,’
‘and ____ and _____ until the _________ dots _____ into _____-swimming tadpoles.’
‘and wait and watch until the fattening dots burst into nimble-swimming tadpoles.’
‘____ Walls would tell us how the _____ ____ was called a bullfrog ___ how he _______ ___ how the ______ _____ laid hundreds of little eggs ___ this was called frogspawn.’
‘Miss Walls would tell us how the daddy frog was called a bullfrog and how he croaked and how the mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs and this was called frogspawn.’
‘For they were ______ in the ____ and ____
In _____.’
‘For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.’
‘Then one ___ day when fields were ____ with _______ in the grass and _____ _____ _______ the flax-dam;’
‘Then one hot day when fields were rank with cowdung in the grass and angry frogs invaded the flax-dam;’
‘I _______ through hedges’
‘I ducked through hedges’
‘To a _____ ________ that I had not _____ ______.’
‘To a coarse croaking that I had not heard before.’
‘The air was ______ with a bass ______.’
‘The air was thick with a bass chorus.’
‘_____-_______ frogs were ____ on sods; their loose necks ______ ____ _____.’
‘gross-bellied frogs were cocked on sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails.’
‘The slap and ____ were _______ _______.’
‘The slap and plop were obscene threats.’
‘Some sat ______ ___ ____ ________, their _____ heads _______.’
‘Some sat poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.’
‘I ________, turned and ___.’
‘I sickened, turned and ran.’
‘The _____ _____ _____ were gathered there for _________’
‘The great slime kings were gathered there for vengeance’
‘I knew that if I dipped my ____ the _____ ____ _____ __.’
‘I knew that if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.’
