Death of a naturalist

• Seamus heany grew up where?

  on a farm
• who died?

  younger brother
• when did he become a father?

  Same year the poem was released
• Analyse 'death of a naturalist'

  death - metaphorical the death of the passion or interest in nature

  naturalist- someone who is an expert or student of nature
• "fattening dots burst"


  nature is alive and thriving
• "here, every spring"


  persona is fascinated long lasting
• "daddy" "mammy"


  childish, youth and innocence
• "in rain"


  volta metaphorical death
• "angry frogs invaded"


  military imagery negative, no longer peaceful
• "poised like mud-grenades"


  military plosive
• "flax dam festered" and "flax had rotted"


  language related to death and decay, foreshadowing death of the naturlist
• "flax, festered" "sweltered, sun"


  alliteration of f and s, creates nursery rhyme like tone
• "sweltered in the in punishing sun"


  confrontational tone foreshadows warlike ending of poem
• "bubbles gargled delicately"


  children find pleasure in unusual things
• "blue bottles" "dragonflies" "spotted butterflies"


  nature is alive and thriving - fascination
• "warm thick slobber"
• "jampotfuls of the jellied specks"
• "coarse croaking"
• "gathered there for vengeance"
• "pulsed like sails"