Discuss the poems Death of a Naturalist and Personal Helicon by

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Recommended: Treatment of nature in poetry

Discuss the poems Death of a Naturalist and Personal Helicon by

Seamus Heaney

Both poems examined revolve around the youth of Seamus Heaney. In both

poems the reader is told about Heaney's memories as a child and his

progressing memories as he grows up and understands his surroundings

more from an adults perspective. This essay will look at and evaluate

how the adult has been moulded from his childhood experiences, Discuss

and explain Seamus Heaney's use of language and tone to portray his

personal feelings, as well as events that led him to the stage of life

he was at and foreseeing from his child perspective and at the stage

he was at when he wrote the poems.

Children are naturally curious and interested about the things in life

that they are unaware and unsure of; in the case of 'death of a

naturalist' it is the aspects of nature, frogs, which, to him were

just the 'mammy and daddy frogs' merely harmless creatures. The writer

conveys that he took frogspawn from the pond, the frogs substantial

home. The result of him sealing the frogspawn causes Heaney to suffer

a guilty conscience, almost as if the frogs are coming to get him for

taking their children, his reality of the frogs turns into an

interpretation of evil, the object of fascination becomes 'slime

kings' and 'angry frogs' the vision of them is that they will attack

if anymore is taken.

Again in the second poem 'Personal Helicon' tells about his curiosity

for things this being wells. He would like to gaze long and mystically

into the pale whiteness of his own reflection. He also liked getting

dirty. The first verse appeals to sight and smell and is portrayed

through the 'smells of dank moss' and the 'dark drop and trapped sky'.

The second ...

... middle of paper ...

... Heaney uses

near rhyme to suggest this and not be convened with normal poetry or

rhyming.

Heaney looks back on his childhood and thinks about how fun it was to

sit by the wells and how he cant do that anymore as it is 'Undignified

as an adult' to still do that even though he wanted to and how the

only way he can feel like he is back by the well is to write about his

experiences by the well 'I rhyme to see myself'

In 'Death of a Naturalist' his childhood memories had destroyed his

perspective as an adult as he now realises looking back how the frogs

wouldn't attack him, the mammy and daddy frogs were now just the

bullfrog and frog. He now also realises how the frogs are not yellow

if it is sunny and brown when it rains but only they appear to be

different from the different brightness and shades of colours showing

his lack of innocence in both poems.

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