Poetry - Death Of A Naturalist Flashcards
Who wrote Death of a Naturalist
Seamus Heaney
Death of a Naturalist context
Heaney was Irish and grew up in the country.
He was a child in the period of the Irish conflict so saw a lot of violence.
Change in tone between the stanzas was influenced by the huge change in his life when he moved to boarding school.
Death of a Naturalist form
Doesn’t follow a particular form.
Blank verse – arguably mimicking tragedies
Significant volta to represent the sudden change in the perspective of nature.
‘flax dam festered’
‘heavy headed’
Process of decomposition.
Sounds heavy and slow.
A powerful, natural process is happening in the town, it has control. suggests a threat.
‘wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell’
Metaphor - noise is so great that it almost feels as if it is a thin layer of fabric in the air. adds to the threatening atmosphere.
‘warm thick slobber’
Child-like tone - narrator was fascinated by the gross process.
‘Miss walls’
‘and’
Repetition of ‘and’ so compound sentences and simple vocabulary - shows simpleness in the childhood phase.
Defines the age of the narrator.
The teachers voice can be clearly heard - sense of innocence and a simple view of the world.
‘angry frogs/ Invaded’
Aarks the change in tone. becomes a lot more threatening. makes the frogs seem like an enemy army.
‘a coarse croaking that I had not heard’
There is a sense of something different.
Things have changed without him knowing.
Coarse croaking could represent the IRA.
‘cocked/On sods’
Personifies the frogs as an army who are ready to attack.
Makes them seem angry and threatening.
Complete change in tone to the innocence of the first stanza.
‘Poised like mud grenades’
Simile suggests how they are about to go off, and in this context leap towards him.
Military vocabulary fits in with the Irish conflict of the time period.
‘vengeance’
‘clutch it’
Shows that nature can get revenge.
Ends the poem with a tone of threat.
Comparisons on Death of a naturalist
The Prelude
