Nature Poems

• Death of a Naturalist

  Seamus Heaney
• DoaN Context

  • Grew up on a farm in the countryside
  • Derry, Northern Ireland
  • Brother died
  • Flax-dam - common in Northern Ireland - grass farming - stagnant water
• DoaN Quote

  'the flax-dam festered'

  • foreshadowing
  • decay
• DoaN Quote

  'bubble gargled delicately'

  • oxymoron
  • childhood wonder
• DoaN Quote

  'best of all was the warm thick slobber'

  • Evoke disgust
  • Childhood wonder
• DoaN Quote

  'one hot day when fields were rank'

  • Start of stanza 2
  • Opinion changed
  • Grown up
• DoaN Quote

  'frogs invaded' 'cocked'

  • military language
  • nature feels threatening
• DoaN Quote

  'poised like mud grenades' 'great slime kings'

  • simile and personification
  • more military language
  • threatening
• DoaN Quote

  'I sickened, turned and ran'

  • shortest sentence
  • opinion has changed
  • emphasis
• DoaN Nature

  • Fascination connected with childhood wonder
  • Sense of innocence
  • Disgust as you get older - fear and repulsion
  • Can be threatening (like getting older)
  • Ties in to growing up and losing innocence (title)
• Hawk Roosting

  Ted Hughes
• HR Context

  • Could be allegory for human nature
  • Hawk could represent tyrants and dictators
  • Hughes says it is nature expressing itself and its power
• HR Quote

  'I sit in the top of the wood my eyes closed' 'no falsifying dream'

  • physically up high
  • posseses power
  • isn't fearful
• HR Quote

  'in sleep rehearse perfect kills'

  • violent
  • powerful
• HR Quote

  'convenience of the high trees !'

  • nature suits the hawk
  • feels all powerful
  • arrogant
• HR Quote

  'it took the whole of Creation to produce my foot, my each feather : Now I hold Creation in my foot'

  • God has created the hawk
  • prideful
  • arrogant
• HR Quote

  'I kill where I please because it is all mine'

  • control and power
  • dictator like
  • arrogance
• HR Quote

  'my manners are tearing off heads' 'allotment of death'

  • extreme violence
  • brutality of nature
• HR Quote

  'the sun is behind me'

  • thinks the its power is backed
  • dictator like
• HR Quote

  'I am going to keep things like this'

  • irony
  • sense of certainty
• HR Nature

  • Human nature can be powerful and threatening
  • Brutality and violence of nature
  • Natural cycle of all things
  • Everything kills and dies
• To Autumn

  John Keats
• TA Context

  • English Romantic poet
  • Collection of 'Odes'
  • Contracted tuberculosis
  • Health deteriorated quickly
• TA Quote

  'season of mist and mellow fruitfulness!'

  • alliteration
  • addressees Autumn
  • gentleness to the season
• TA Quote

  'close bosom-friend of the maturing sun'

  • emphasis on closeness
  • idea of morning
  • new stage of life
  • getting closer to death
• TA Quote

  'to swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells'

  • close to bursting
  • ripe
  • good stage of life
• TA Quote

  'for Summer has overbrimmed their clammy cells'

  • Summer was too much
  • Autumn is gentler
  • finding positives in Autumn
  • coping with his situation
• TA Quote

  'Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where are they ?'

  • scornful of Spring
  • Autumn should be celebrated just as much
• TA Quote

  'think not of them'

  • should focus on Autumn (the situation you are given)
  • reassuring himself
• TA Quote

  'small gnats mourn' 'light wind lives or dies'

  • contrasting
  • shows mixed emotions
  • doesn't know how to feel about his situation
• TA Quote

  'hedge-crickets sing' 'red-breast whistles' 'gathering swallows'

  • focus on sound
  • all winter animals
  • swallows migrate and come back
  • death can lead to a new stage in life
  • something after death
• TA Nature

  • 'Ode' praises Autumn and the positives in it - coming to terms with death
  • Power of nature - beauty and abundance - Romantic concepts
  • Sorrow in nature - start of winter (end of life)
  • Extended metaphor of the seasons to display life
• The Prelude

  William Wordsworth
• TP Context

  • Autobiographical poem - ice skating outside with friends
  • Romantic poet - nature and humans relationship
  • Reflects on memories and nature
  • Excerpt of a larger poem
• TP Quote

  'And in the frosty season'

  • shows it is a bigger poem
  • establishes winter
  • nature is still beautiful even in winter
• TP Quote

  'through the twilight blaz'd I heeded not the summons'

  • imagery of light and warmth
  • youthful excitement
  • nature links with childhood wonder - Romantic concept
• TP Quote

  'I wheeled about, proud and exulting like an untired horse'

  • energetic
  • proud
  • strong
  • nature can be empowering
• TP Quote

  'Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud'

  • shift to focus on nature
  • nature is always there
  • appeals to senses
• TP Quote

  'the leafless trees' 'tinkled like iron'

  • further emphasis on winter
  • onomatopoeia
  • sibilance
  • nature sounds otherworldly
  • appeals to the senses
• TP Quote

  'alien sound'

  • nature contrasts the noise of the children
  • nature is otherworldly
  • nature is unexplainable - Romantic concept