death of a naturalist- seamus heaney Flashcards
analyse the title:
- metaphorical- death of someone’s passion or interest in nature
- naturalist- an expert or student in nature
- poem about contrasting views- highlighted through title- about both life and death
analyse:
All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
- having the ‘flax dam’ in the townland’s ‘heart’ stresses its importance to the community
- juxtaposition of country and town- invading each other?
- language related to death and decay- foreshadows the death of the naturalist
- alliteration of F,H,S creates a nursery rhyme like tone- reflects the narrators youth
- confrontational tone- foreshadows the poem’s warlike ending
analyse:
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks.
- oxymoron- children find pleasure in the most unusual/ disgusting things
- nature is alive and thriving- persona fascinated by it
- list of typically beautiful insects- juxtaposes with the disgusting slobber
- child-like language highlights naivety and innocence
- superlative
- simile
- combined image of sound, touch and smell- it is a rich and vivid memory
analyse:
Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles.
- determiner- suggests fascination with nature was long lasting
- man has interrupted nature for their own enjoyment
- alliteration (wait and watch) draws attention to how absorbed the persona is in their passion
- imagery further suggests that nature is alive, thriving and full of energy- image of transformation, sense of awe
- enjambment emphasises the narrator’s excitement
analyse:
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
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In the rain.
- youth and Irish dialect demonstrated
- repetition of simple conjunction ‘and’ as well as a repetitive sentence structure mimics speech patterns of young children, also shows enthusiasm and passion
- young voice of a naturalist, is interested, learning
- ‘you could tell’- child narrator wants to share their interest with others
- abrupt line/ stanza end foreshadows the metaphorical death in next stanza- approach towards the negative would also be considered the volta
analyse:
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass and angry frogs
Invaded the flaxdam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
- ‘Then’ change in time to a specific event, more serious tone
- setting has not changed- nature isn’t different, persona is
- negative language- persona feels scared or uncomfortable
- Heaney makes the phrase ‘coarse croaking’ stand out through alliteration to reflect how the sound of the frogs stand out to the persona- makes them feel unsettled, nervous or intimidated
- nature is strong, fearsome, impenetrable- frogs have ganged up on the persona
analyse:
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
- negative language continued- very thing was fascinated by now disgusts
- semantic field of war- nature and man have gone from allies to enemies- nature is attacking back- military language makes the frogs seem threatening
- onomatopoeic words are called threats emphasises the sounds of the frogs scare persona
- quick succession of verbs highlights speed and horrified reaction
- personification- ‘great slime kings’- frogs have power over the narrator
- ‘poised like mud grenades’- simile, suggests they are about to explode- terrifying
- final, nightmarish image suggests that the change is permanent- persona will never love nature again
- man’s power has gone
- stanza contrasts with the descriptiveness of the rest of the poem
describe the form of the poem
- first person narrator- reflecting on childhood
- written in blank verse- sounds conversational
- lack of rhyme scheme might suggest that change is not always predictable
describe the structure of the poem
- has 2 stanzas- each presenting a different attitude towards nature
- although there are references to decay in the 1st, the narrator’s childish enthusiasm makes their relationship seem secure
- shift in 2nd stanza- relationship becomes troubled- nature is presented as unfamiliar and threatening
context:
- published the same year he first became a father- mediating on his own childhood in rural Ireland
- inspired by the death of his younger brother (explores loss of innocence- seen in shift from fascination to terror)- died in 1953 aged four
- Irish poet, 1939-2013
- massively acclaimed- one Nobel Prize in literature in 1995
- teacher, lecturer, poet
- grew up in rural Northern Ireland on his family’s farm- described his childhood as ‘an intimate, physical, creaturely existance…in suspension between the archaic and the modern’
- grew up with the IRA terrorist attacks- explains the sense of conflict in his writing
key quotes:
- bubbles gargled delicately
- best of all was the warm thick slobber
- dragon-flies, spotted butterflies
- repetition of ‘and’
- and wait and watch
- I sickened, turned, and ran.
- every spring
- if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it
- great slime kings
- poised like mud grenades, cocked
