Death_of_a_Naturalist

Poetry Critical Essay. Question 13 from 2006 paper. Choose a poem which deals with a childhood experience. Discuss to what extent the poet’s description of the experience leads you to a clear understanding of the poem’s theme. PLAN Choose a poem which shows a childhood situation. Explain how far the poet’s description of the situation brings me to a goods understanding of the poem’s main theme which is loss of innocence. WHAT IS IT THAT I AM BEING ASKED TO DO ' Talk about what happens in the poem and how the loss of Innocence theme is made clear to us by the writers use of imagery, word choice and alliteration. “Bubbles gargled delicately” contrast with “Coarse croaking” from second stanza. “I would wait and watch”, “I sickened turned and ran” Alliteration “nimble swimming tadpoles” contrasting with “gross-bellied frogs” “I would fill jampots full of the jellied specks” “I knew that If I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it” ESSAY In the poem Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney we are shown an important part of a young child’s developing life. The poet uses various techniques such as Imagery to give us a clear understanding and picture of the main theme throughout the poem, which is loss of Innocence. In Heaney’s poem Death of a Naturalist we are described a childhood experience. A young, we presume boy due to the actions, learns all about frogspawn and how it grows to turn into something bursting with life. The child is fascinated by this as a young person but we see in the second contrasting stanza that the boy loses this love and fascination and fears the frogs. Straight away we are introduced to the main theme from the title: “Death of a Naturalist” The poet’s clever use of word choice to sum up this poem also links in with the theme. “Death” which has connotations of loss. Also, the word “Naturalist” means someone who loves nature. Thus it concludes the title of this poem translated is the same as the main theme which is one of the clever things the writer has done to help lead us to the main theme. In the first stanza the persona’s love and amazement for frogs and frog spawn is very fresh, we are given off the idea that he has not known about these creatures for very long as the way he describes them is very soft: “Bubbles gargled delicately” The writers use of a metaphor here emphasises how soft and nicely the persona sees