Death of a Naturalist By Seamus Heaney

Title:

• Death of his love of nature

• Ironic: young age

• Ambiguous and dramatic- dramatic stage in his life

• Death of innocence as a child

Themes:

• A very young Heaney, losing his innocence,

• Profound impact since he chose to write about it in detail

• Nature – opposite to William Wordsworth's view on Nature

• Significant memories

Language:

• Both Stanza's begin ominously, dramatic language increases fear and anticipation of event.

• Semantic fields: War and Weapons – childlike imagination and fear

• Child like colloquial language and adult language are interlinked to give an impression of a memory.

• 'Daddy Frogs' – innocence

• Personification of the sun

• 'Brown in the rain' – simple description for innocence

• 'Mud grenades' – more intricate description for knowledge gained

• Uses disgusting imagery in the first stanza…