DOAN- context/content/structure

• context:

  • written 1966
  • autobiographical poem
  • describes northern Irish farm he grew up on
  • military imagery could reflect tensions & troubles in Ireland at time
• form/structure:

  • written in blank verse (unrhymed)
  • suggests that change is not always predictable
• content:

  • about a child who collects frogspawn from nearby flax-dam
  • stores it in jam jars
  • start of poem represents boys innocent imagination and appreciation for the natural world
  • end of poem shows realisation of observing frogs mating
  • previously a blissful experience, kills the budding naturalist in Heaney - could represent how perceptions change as we grow up