Death of a Naturalist

1. Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney

2. Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994). He died in 2013.

4. The poem contains two verses or STANZAS. Stanza 1 is concerned with the young child’s fascination with nature. The poet describes, in great detail, what he saw and how he loved to get close and examine the frogspawn carefully. How can we tell he is young?

5. Death of a Naturalist By Seamus Heaney WE WILL READ THROUGH THE POEM TWICE

6. All the year the flax-dam festered in the heartOf the townland; green and heavy headedFlax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottlesWove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,But best of all was the warm thick slobberOf frogspawn that grew like clotted waterIn the shade of the banks. Here, every spring

7. I would fill jampots full of the jelliedSpecks to range on the window-sills at home,On shelves at school, and wait and watch untilThe fattening dots burst into nimble-Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us howThe daddy frog was called a bullfrogAnd how he croaked and how the mammy frogLaid hundreds of little eggs and this wasFrogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs tooFor they were yellow in the sun and brownIn rain.

8. In stanza 2 the poet is older and has lost his fascination with nature and is repulsed and terrified of the huge frogs How can we tell he is older now?

9. Then one hot day when fields were rankWith cowdung in the grass the angry frogsInvaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedgesTo a coarse croaking that I had not heardBefore. The air was thick with a bass chorus.Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cockedOn sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some satPoised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kingsWere gathered there for vengeance and I knewThat if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

10. DEATH • Not an actual death but • the end of innocence • The end of childhood interests and pursuits as we mature • THE NATURALIST • A naturalist is an expert in or student of natural history. • In the poem he is referring to the young boy who enjoys exploring nature and getting very close to sounds and smells he finds. THE TITLE

11. Seamus Heaney’s four year old brother died in a car accident when Heaney was a young boy. • The death affected him badly and many of his poems are about loss of innocence. • Heaney grew up on a farm and many of his poems reflect his upbringing. CONTEXT OF THE POEM

12. There is a contrast in tone between the two stanzas • The tone of the poem in the first stanza is almost enthusiastic – the verbs “sweltered”, “festered” and “gargled” suggest the speaker is almost relishing the vile smells of the dam. • Language such as “jampotfuls”, “fattening dots” and “mammy frog”suggest childhood innocence. • The tone changes (turning point) on “ Then one hot day” and the tone becomes more aware of the dangers – “angry frogs”. • Final words – “spawn would clutch it” shows the contrast with when he would collect the“jellied specks” – he has grown up and no longer wants to play the games of his childhood. TONE

13. The poem is divided into two stanzas of 21 and 12 lines respectively. The break or volta, where the child loses innocence and becomes aware that life is not so simple, comes at the beginning of line 22, with ‘Then’. • There is no regular rhyme scheme or metre, but instead Heaney uses enjambment, varied sentence length and varying pace to convey the nuances of the story. He also uses internal rhyme, as in lines five and six (stanza two) where ‘bass’ and ‘gross’ are consonantly rhymed. • These devices give the poem unity and cohesion. STRUCTURE

14. There are a wide selection of techniques used within this poem: • Word choice • Imagery • Extended metaphor • Enjambment • Volta • Onomatopoeia • Alliteration LANGUAGE

15. Read through the poem and highlight as many examples of each TECHNIQUE as you can

16. Word Choice What did you find? LANGUAGE

17. Word Choice LANGUAGE

18. Imagery What did you find? LANGUAGE

19. LANGUAGE-IMAGERY

20. Enjambment What did you find? LANGUAGE

21. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. There is a lot going on in this section of the poem. We can sense the child’s voice talking to us directly – not through the eyes of the adult who has written the poem. How does he do that? LANGUAGE

22. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. Firstly, there is the language choices that we have already discussed, but there is also the sound and construction of these lines. They seem to run in to one another crossing over the lines. THIS IS ENJAMBMENT LANGUAGE

23. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. THIS IS ENJAMBMENT LANGUAGE When we read these lines we can hear the young boy’s enthusiasm and excitement with regard to the frogspawn. His teacher is giving a lesson in Biology – life cycles and new birth– and he loves it.

24. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. Note also, his childlike dialect could be reflective of the naivety and innocence Heaney still possesses at this point in the poem. He is still inquisitive and curious at this stage, a budding naturalist. However, in the final stanza of the poem his language matures, possibly due to the traumatising experience that he has will the bullfrogs that takes away that childlike innocence, and replaces his curiosity with fear, hence the ‘Death of a Naturalist’ LANGUAGE

25. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. One last point about this section: the last line This is the shortest line in the poem. What’s the significance? LANGUAGE

26. Enjambment What did you find? The fattening dots burst into nimble- Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how The daddy frog was called a bullfrog And how he croaked and how the mammy frog Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too For they were yellow in the sun and brown In rain. One last point about this section: the last line This is the shortest line in the poem. What’s the significance? It creates a stop – an end to the youthful innocence. LANGUAGE

27. Volta What did you find? LANGUAGE

28. Volta What did you find? Then one hot day LANGUAGE This is the turning point where we become aware of change. From now, we are hearing from an someone less innocent/more aware – a much more cynical person - who has a healthy respect (and fear) of the natural world.

29. Onomatopoeia What did you find? LANGUAGE

30. onomatopoeia LANGUAGE

31. Alliteration What did you find? LANGUAGE

32. ALLITERATION/ASSONANCE LANGUAGE

34. Stanza One In the first stanza Heaney makes such extensive use of alliteration and assonance that the language almost feels heavy and sticky, to emulate a hot summer’s day on the farm. The process of rotting the flax took time, and this is suggested by how the poet has drawn out the vowels, for example in the long ‘e’ sounds of ‘green and heavy headed’ His use of enjambment also contribute to this slow moving style. There is a sense of him sitting and watching as events unfold, as illustrated in line thirteen.

35. Stanza 2 The change of tone occurs abruptly with the word ‘Then’. After the languorous language (dreamy, lazy) of the first stanza this verse begins with a harsh monosyllabic line: ‘Then one hot day when fields were rank/with cowdung’. Both ‘rank’ and ‘dung’ sound cacophonous with harsh consonance. The words ‘coarse croaking’ sound abrasive and unpleasant, and they form a ‘bass chorus’. Again the proliferation of ‘o’ sounds combined with the harsh ‘c’ show that this is eerie and grating on the child’s nerves. He continues to use language that a child would find entertaining, and it reads in part almost like a cartoon with the onomatopoeic‘slap’ and ‘plop’, except here they are juxtaposed beside the words ‘obscene threat’. This should be a spectacle to a child, but is instead frightening because of the number of toads and their perceived indignation at human intrusion.

38. THEME- THE NATURAL WORLD The title of "Death of a Naturalist" gives it away: nature is going to be a big part of this poem. Heaney includes many natural description (albeit, sometimes unsavoury natural description), and centres the whole poem around the reproduction of frogs. The speaker has a conflicted relationship with nature. At first he's excited by the change of the season when spring comes along, bringing with it the familiar frogspawn that's so much fun to scoop up in jam jars and watch transform. The event at the end of the poem, however, changes his opinion. He encounters the reality of the frogs' reproduction, and is not only thoroughly disgusted by it, but frightened, too.

39. THEME- THE NATURAL WORLD Questions About Man and the Natural World: As a reader, what is the effect of the more disgusting descriptions of nature in this poem?  Do you think Heaney wants the reader to be turned off by nature, or do you think he just wants to paint a realistic picture of it (good and bad)?  What was the most vivid description involving nature in the poem for you? How many (of the five) senses were engaged in the description?  Do you think the speaker's bad experience with the frogs at the end of the poem has turned him away from nature entirely? Why or why not?

40. THEME- LOSS OF INNOCENCE The speaker in "Death of a Naturalist" is at the age where he Is filled with childlike wonderment, but he's starting to learn how the world works. This can be a shocking and exciting time. On the one hand, he is excited about spring coming because he gets to collect the gooey, nasty, but undeniably fun, frogspawn and watch it change on his windowsill. Plus, he gets to learn about how the whole process works at school. From a distance this is all good, but that one hot day, when he learns the reality of frogspawn, things aren't so simple. He feels disgusted by the reality of reproduction. He also feels oddly guilty that in collecting the frogspawn he may have disturbed the natural balance, so the big bullfrogs might feel vengeful toward him. Our speaker is no longer carefree and innocent. He knows more, he's experienced more, and he's finding out that the world is a complex and sometimes uncomfortable place.

41. THEME- LOSS OF INNOCENCE Questions About Innocence What do lines 16–18 ("The daddy frog was called the bullfrog / And how he croaked and how the mammy frog / Laid hundreds of little eggs …") tell you about the speaker's innocence? What about the speaker's curiosity and enthusiasm for the frogspawn (especially in the first half of the poem) makes him seem more innocent? Does his teacher or his schooling do anything, in your opinion, to affect the speaker's innocence? What parts of the poem support your answer? At the end of the poem, the speaker seems to have become aware of what the frogspawn is, where it comes from, and to whom it belongs. What about this newfound awareness affects his innocence?