Death of a Naturalist Analysis

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Recommended: Nature in English poetry

Death of a Naturalist

The poem, like Seamus Heaney’s work, is very nature minded in terms of context. However, he describes the frogs in a very evil, sinister, and menacing way. It is about a child who collects frog spawn from the dam and collects it in jars. He is innocent and unaware of the evil that lurks in the frog spawn. We can see in the poem that the boy is young, when he remembers his teacher teaching him about the frogs, and his way of calling the frogs ‘Daddy frog’ and ‘Mammy Frog’.

The poem heavily appeals to the senses, which describes the more sinister parts of nature. Because when people think of nature they usually think of the more beautiful parts of it (e.g. mountains etc.) The poems appeal to senses shows how filthy and grubby nature can be describing the sight, smel...

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