Thursday, May 14, 2020

Essay on Death of a Naturalist - 1016 Words

Death of a Naturalist This poem is similar to Blackberry-Picking in its subject and structure - here, too, Heaney explains a change in his attitude to the natural world, in a poem that falls into two parts, a sort of before and after. But here the experience is almost like a nightmare, as Heaney witnesses a plague of frogs like something from the Old Testament. You do not need to know what a flax-dam is to appreciate the poem, as Heaney describes the features that are relevant to what happened there - but you will find a note below. Click here to see this explanation. The poems title is amusingly ironic - by a naturalist, we would normally mean someone with expert scientific knowledge of†¦show more content†¦The poem is set out in two sections of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter lines). Heaney uses onomatopoeia more lavishly here than in any poem - and many of the sounds are very indelicate: gargled, slap and plop and farting. The lexicon is full of terms of putrefaction, ordure (excrement or faeces) and generally unpleasant things - festered, rotted, slobber, clotted water, rank/With cowdung and slime kings. In the first section, the poet notes the festering in the flax-dam, but can cope with this familiar scene of things rotting and spawn hatching. Perhaps, as an inquisitive child he felt some pride in not being squeamish - he thinks of the bubbles from the process as gargling delicately. He is confident in taking the frogspawn - he does it every year, and watches the jellied specks become fattening dots then turn into tadpoles. He has an almost scientific interest in knowing the proper names (bullfrog and frogspawn) rather than the teachers patronizing talk of daddy and mammy, and in the idea of forecasting the weather with the spawn. (Not really very helpful, since you can see if it is raining or sunny by direct observation - no need to look at the frogspawn.) The second section appears like a punishment from offended nature for the boys arrogance - when he sees what nature in the raw is really like, he is terrified.Show MoreRelated Death of naturalist Essay719 Words   |  3 PagesDeath of naturalist This poem is a fertile mixture of imagery, sounds and an impression created by nature on people’s mind. Heaney sensualises an outstanding fear of the physical wonders of the world. He vividly describes his childhood experience that precipitates his change as a boy from the receptive and protected innocence of childhood to the fear and uncertainty of adolescence. As he wonders along the pathways of salient discovery, Heaney’s imagination bursts into life. The titleRead More Poetry appreciation of Death of a naturalist Essay1108 Words   |  5 PagesPoetry appreciation of Death of a naturalist This poem ‘Death of a Naturalist’ by Seamus Heaney is about the lifecycle of frogs and a child’s interest in nature. 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