Desth Of A Naturalist (Seamus Heaney) Flashcards
“All year the flax-dam festered in the heart / Of the townland;”
verb “festered” = semantic field of disease, corruption
• plosive “f” sounds = harsh, violent tone → nature = repulsive
• irony in “heart” = centrality of decay not life
• juxtaposition of setting + verb = tension between natural + unnatural
Heaney opens with an anti-idyllic portrayal of rural life, foreshadowing the loss of innocence.
Bubbles gargled delicately”
oxymoron = contrasts harsh “gargled” w/ gentle “delicately” → sensory confusion
• onomatopoeia “gargled” = physical immersion, fascination
• lexical tension = beauty misread in violence
• innocence = speaker finds charm in repulsion
Heaney explores the blurred boundary between attraction and disgust in the child’s naive perception.
Miss Walls would tell us how / The daddy frog was called a bullfrog”
reported speech = adult knowledge = authority figure
• “daddy” / “bullfrog” = masculine imagery → latent aggression
• enjambment = mimics child’s excitement + recall
• foreshadowing = innocence undercut by coded violence
Heaney shows how facts from adults are filtered through a child’s lens, charged with hidden tension.
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog / Laid hundreds of little eggs”
repetition “how…how” = breathless tone, childlike fascination
• simplistic diction “mammy” = emotional closeness, youth
• natural fertility seen as magical → not yet understood
• list-like structure = awe-driven accumulation
Heaney captures the childhood wonder of nature’s reproductive power before knowledge brings fear.
“Then one hot day when fields were rank”
temporal shift “then” = pivotal tonal change
• “rank” = double meaning: lush/overgrown + disgusting → symbolic rot
• sensory saturation = overwhelming tension rising
• shift from curiosity → confrontation
Heaney marks the irreversible loss of innocence with this tonal and sensory shift into disgust.
“Angry frogs invaded the flax-dam;”
anthropomorphism = “angry” → frogs become threatening
• military verb “invaded” = semantic field of war, violence
• contrast to passive frogs before = new perception
• power dynamic reversed → speaker now the victim
Heaney recasts nature as aggressive and hostile, mirroring the speaker’s emotional disturbance.
“Gross-bellied frogs were cocked / On sods;”
grotesque compound “gross-bellied” = repulsive, bodily horror
• violent metaphor “cocked” = loaded gun → readiness to attack
• enjambment creates sense of unstable movement
• nature = grotesque and threatening
Heaney uses violent, bodily imagery to express the speaker’s fear and physical revulsion.
“Poised like mud grenades”
simile = explicit war imagery → frogs = weapons
• “poised” = potential violence, suspense
• semantic field of conflict = emotional explosion building
• metaphor escalates fear into battlefield trauma
Heaney shows nature transformed into a war zone, mirroring the psychological rupture of adolescence.
“I sickened, turned, and ran.”
triadic list = physical, instinctive flight response
• monosyllables = blunt, raw, unfiltered
• caesura between each verb = fragmented fear
• nature = no longer wonder, but trauma
Heaney ends with emotional breakdown and total rejection of nature, symbolising childhood’s end.
Title: Death of a Naturalist
ironic title → “death” not literal, but spiritual/emotional
• “Naturalist” = child fascinated by nature → identity shift
• suggests loss of innocence or worldview collapse
• foreshadows speaker’s transformation from wonder to fear
Heaney uses the title to signal a metaphorical death—the child’s wonder replaced by anxiety and disgust.
Structure & Form
• 2 stanza structure = clear tonal shift (wonder → horror)
• enjambment = mimics child’s flowing thoughts → later disrupted
• volta between stanzas = emotional rupture, new perception
• irregular rhythm = speaker’s unease, especially in 2nd stanza
Context
autobiographical → Heaney’s own rural upbringing in Northern Ireland
• interest in nature + Catholic background = tension between body, guilt, and beauty
• reflects childhood experiences + adult reflection
• published in 1966 → part of first collection exploring identity, growth, Irish landscape
Themes
Innocence → experience
• Nature: beauty vs brutality
• Fear, transformation, maturity
• Disgust + loss of control
• Conflict between past perception and new awareness
