Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney

• 'Naturalist'

  Lover of nature
• 'Festered'

  Rotten
• 'Townland'

  Rural village centred around farm
• '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'

  Repulsive imagery
• 'Sods'

  Clump of mud
• 'Delicately'

  Gentle, soft
• 'Bubbles gargled delicately'

  Oxymoron, child loves this scene
• 'Bluebottles'

  Flys - eat cow poo
• 'Bubbled gargled'

  Sound of bubbles
• 'Strong gauze'

  Onomatopoeia
• Youth 


  Innocence, naivety
• 'Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell'

  Smell of rotting flax
• 'Slobber'

  Thick, slimy saliva
• 'Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water'

  Simile compares frog spawn to clotted water
• 'Fill jampotfuls of the jellied'

  Tadpole
• Polysedeton 


  Repetition of 'and'
• Polysedeton 


  Shows youthful excitement
• 'The daddy frog was called a bullfrog'

  Direct address
• 'Then'

  Temporal marker
• 'Rank'

  Foul smelling
• 'Angry frogs'

  Personification
• 'Angry frogs'

  Anthropomorphism
• 'I ducked through hedges'

  Hiding, fear
• 'Invaded' 


  War take over
• 'Coarse croaking'

  Alliteration
• 'Cocked' 


  Atmosphere of war
• 'Gross-bellied'

  Fat
• 'Slap and pop' 


  Onomatopoeia
• 'Poised' 


  Violence
• 'I sickened, turned and ran'

  Escaped
• 'That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it'


  Grab his hand, drown him. Take away innocence (growing older less joyful)
• 'Vengeance'


  Revenge
• Childs imagination 


  Danger