'Death of A Naturalist' by Seamus Heaney- Analysis

Death of A Naturalist

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart

Of the townland; green and heavy headed

Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.

Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.

Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles

Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.

There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,

But best of all was the warm thick slobber

Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water

In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring

I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied

Specks to range on window-sills at home,

On shelves at school, and wait and watch until

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.

Then one hot day when fields were rank

With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs

Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges

To a coarse croaking that I had not heard

Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.

Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked

On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:

The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat

Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.

I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings

Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew

That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

Seamus Heaney

Biography:

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet born in 1939, and is the eldest of nine children. Growing up on a farm, a theme that permeates much of his work, his adolescence was blighted by the tragic death of his 4 year-old brother Christopher in a road accident. This is reflected in several of his poems, including the poignant ‘Mid-Term Break’. He also faced the issue of being a Catholic in Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland. After graduating from Queen’s College, Belfast, with a First Class Honours degree in English Language and Literature, his poetry came to public attention with the publication of the critically acclaimed volume ‘Death of a Naturalist’ in 1966. By the end of 1979, he had published a further five volumes, and was appointed as the Professor of Poetry at Oxford University for five years. In 1995, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth’. After suffering a stroke in 2006, he published his twelfth collection, ‘Human Chain’ in 2010, and continues to work today.

Analysis:

‘Death of a Naturalist’ is both a description of Heaney’s experience with nature as a boy, and a metaphor for the loss of his childhood innocence, as he looks back wistfully at his youthful naivety. He is fascinated by the frogspawn and tadpoles of the flax-dam’, but becomes repulsed by a horde of croaking frogs in their maturity. It is similar to another of Heaney’s works, ‘Blackberry-Picking’ in subject and style, as both centre on the change in Heaney’s attitude to the natural world, scaling the heights of pleasure before a crucial mood-swing to plumb the depths of revulsion.

            The poem opens with a vivid, yet ambivalent description of a flax-dam that ‘festers in the heart of the townland’, much like a putrefying core would. He notes this, but is not disgusted by it, as he knows of the jewels of frogspawn that are concealed within. Using assonantal para-rhyme in the alliterative phrase ‘green and heavy headed flax had rotted there’, he harnesses their slow, substantial sounds to convey the decaying atmosphere. This is further enhanced by description of flax as being ‘weighted down by huge sods’, while the flax-dam is personified as it ‘sweltered in the punishing sun’.  Using pathetic fallacy to portray the sun, the poet imagines it as an oppressive, brutal ruler, and this authorial nudge hints at the negative mood swing that is to come. Appealing now to our sense of hearing, he employs striking auditory imagery such as the oxymoronic ‘gargled delicately’, before describing the bluebottles as weaving ‘a strong gauze of sound around the smell’. He achieves the effect of creating pleasant connotations of light, gentle fabric from a revolting source. The noise of the bluebottles is hazy anyway, but so intense is their presence at the flax dam that their dense sound has become embodied in a material.

            In a typical feature of Heaney’s narrative, he goes into character and adopts the voice of his boyhood self: a pure, untainted vessel, unaware of the monstrosities that are soon to corrupt his mind and alter his perception of nature. Beginning with the tinkling phrase ‘dragon-flies, spotted butterflies’, he captures the sense of wonder using childish expressions such as ‘best of all’. Heaney as a child imagines the frogspawn as ‘warm thick slobber’, the onomatopoeia subtly encapsulating the gelatinous texture of its subject. In two long, uninterrupted sentences, comprising unsophisticated clauses linked by ‘and’, he skilfully imitates his innocent enthusiasm, using enjambement to emphasize this. There is no description, only a simple, almost nostalgic recitation of his actions: he ‘would fill jampotfuls of the jellied specks’, before beginning to ‘wait and watch’ until at last, to his delight, the ‘fattening dots burst into nimble-swimming tadpoles’.

He relates how his teacher has taught them about the lifecycle of a frog, proudly demonstrating his knowledge about how the ‘daddy frog was called a bullfrog, and how he croaked’ (an premonition of what he will later experience) and how ‘the mammy frog laid hundreds of little eggs’, taking on the role of a keen naturalist. This awe is emphasised by the start of a new line for the word ‘frogspawn’, before an interest verging on scientific is expressed through the idea of forecasting the weather by the colours of frogs. However, the first section ends abruptly with the words ‘in rain’, indicating a forthcoming negative change.

            Even the opening word, ‘then’ signals a change in thought, an omen of what is to follow. The line ‘one hot day when fields were rank’ almost imitates the sound of marching footsteps, as we are introduced to the ‘angry frogs’ that have ‘invaded the flax-dam’. Throughout the remainder of the poem, a martial theme is apparent, demonstrated by ideas such as ‘poised like mud grenades’, ‘great slime kings’ and ‘gathered there for vengeance’: to Heaney, these animals appear like belligerent warlords, determined to retaliate over the earlier theft of their frogspawn. They have already conquered the air, which is ‘thick with a bass chorus’, a masculine threat contrasting both with Miss Walls’s gently portrayal of the frogs, and the gauze before. Using the striking simile, ‘their loose necks pulsed like sails’, he depicts their grotesque animation, showing to the reader how shockingly alive they appeared to him. In the concluding line, even the frogspawn itself is nightmarishly endowed in the imagination of the child. Previously, he had peacefully collected the frogspawn; now, he fears that if he dips his hand into the water, the ‘spawn would clutch it’: a monstrous image that must have served to terrify the young Heaney. Indeed, he then ‘sickened, turned, and ran’,  leaving the beasts behind. These lines echo ones from another of his poems, ‘An Advancement of Learning’ (‘my throat sickened so quickly that I turned down the path in a cold sweat’), which is also concerned with the less appealing side of nature, in this instance, rats.

            The reader sympathises with his disgust at the surprising scene that he is confronted by, and Heaney uses lavishly indelicate onomatopoeia such as the deliberately crude ‘cocked on sods’, and ‘slap and plop’, which are compared to ‘obscene threats’: to him, this assault on the flax-dam is both explicitly offensive and hideously nauseating. This is also indicated by his choice of words for the action and sound of their heads, which are described as ‘farting’, another rude, indecent comparison. There are also religious undertones, as the infestation of frogs appears almost to be a Biblical plague from the time of Moses.

            ‘Death of a Naturalist’ takes the form of two contrasting parts, set out in blank verse: the first section conveys his enchantment with nature; the second demonstrates his disillusionment, as he begins to see the frogs not as his playful allies, but as a menace. The previous security the poet feels changes into threat, mirroring the transition of the tadpoles into frogs, and his own self-development. The loss of innocence is a consequence of growing up, but mars a previously blissful existence, and ironically, it is the very abundance of nature that kills the budding naturalist within Heaney.