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The best Death of a Naturalist study guide on the planet. The fastest way to understand the poem's meaning, themes, form, rhyme scheme, meter, and poetic devices.
- Digging
"Digging" is one of the most widely known poems by the Irish...
- Blackberry-Picking
The poem depicts a seemingly innocent childhood memory of...
- Digging
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) describes how any interest he had in becoming a keen scientific observer of nature (‘a naturalist’) was destroyed by his early experiences of frogs in the local ‘flax-dam’ (an area where flax, or linseed, grows in the boggy terrain of Heaney’s native Northern Ireland).
- Context
- Structure and Form
- Analysis of Death of A Naturalist
Born in 1939 in County Londonderry (or Derry as it is more often referred to by Nationalists) Seamus Heaney is often known as a ‘farmer poet’ since many of his earliest poems are based on and around the farm and neighborhood where he was raised. ‘Death of a Naturalist’ appeared in his first major anthologyof the same name, which was published in 19...
The poem is set out in two stanzas with a distinct volta in the second, signaled by the word ‘Then’ to indicate a change in the poet/speaker’s relationship with nature. It is written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) throughout.
Stanza One
Although this stanza focuses on the child’s excitement, there are warning signs in the first line that there is a darker element to this poem. An ominous tone is created in by the use of the words ‘festered’, ‘rotted’, ‘sweltered’, and ‘punishing’. Already there is a sense of nature at its most unforgiving, but rather than alarm the child it seems to captivate him. He watches and listens intently and doesn’t seem repulsed as the ‘bluebottles/Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.’ The...
Stanza Two
The change of tone occurs abruptly with the word ‘Then’. After the languorous language of the first stanza, this verse begins with a harsh monosyllabic line: ‘The one hot day when fields were rank/with cowdung’. Both ‘rank’ and ‘dung’ sound cacophonous with harsh consonance. The word ‘dung’ is an Anglo-Saxon word for cow manure, used colloquially in Northern Ireland. He describes the frogs as an army, coming back to seize what was theirs. This is indicated by the word ‘invaded’ and reinforced...
- Female
- English And French Teacher
The title is metaphorical – the “death” symbolises the speaker’s loss of innocence as he grows up. The tone of the poem at the beginning is almost enthusiastic – the verbs “sweltered”, “festered” and “gargled” suggest the speaker is almost relishing the vile smells of the dam.
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This English Literature section of Revision World analyses Seamus Heaney’s Poem Death of a Naturalist.
Death of a Naturalist study guide contains a biography of Seamus Heaney, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes.
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Oct 9, 2023 · 'Death of a Naturalist' Summary and Analysis. 'Death of a Naturalist' is a blank verse poem that focuses on the loss of childhood innocence. Heaney looks back to a time when he was a boy initially enthralled by the local flax-dam, an area of boggy water in his native County Derry, Northern Ireland.
