Death of A Naturalist

Question 1

Seamus Heaney Context

Answer 1

Irish poet

Grew up on a farm

Often wrote about nature and childhood

Question 2

Purpose

Answer 2

Gives readers the oppurtunity to reflect on personal childhood experience

Question 3

summary

Answer 3

The narrator remebers how they used ot collect frogspawn

He was enthusiastic about nature and the sticky frogspawn

His teacher tought him how frogspawn is produced

He was disgusted by this

Question 4

Form

Answer 4

Lack of rhyming - unpredictable change

Blank verse - conversational

1st person - reflective of personal childhood

Question 5

structure

Answer 5

shift in tone/perspective

from enthusiastic and delighted child

to a troubled relationship with nature as unfamiliar and threatening

Question 6

langauge

Answer 6

Sensory imagery - immerses reader

Contrast

Question 7

key quotes

Answer 7

But best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
- fascination/delight/entusiasm/desire
- similie emphasises thick quality

Some sat poised like mud grenades
- similie
- threatening and dengerous - expolsive
- connotations of violence

The great slime kings were gathered there for vengeance
- predators
- revenge
- personification - gives authority to frogs

Question 8

Mood

Answer 8

Fascination - enthusiastic tone and a curious ‘naturalist’

Disgust - tone of dread and repulsion