Death of a Naturalist

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the idea of a filter attached to it). The first stanza also incorporates a lot of childish diction such as “daddy”, “mammy” and “too”. These words have an air of innocence attached to it. The words ‘warm and thick’ further show the excitement of having and studying the frogspawn with his teacher. In summary, the first stanza uses a tone of innocence, but foreshadows an impending change.

In stanza two, Heaney begins by saying ‘then” which indicates a change in tone from the previous one of innocence. He also provides more specific details e.g. a more specific time period of “one hot day”. For the first time in the poem, the frogs are “angry” and he is now not excited but finds them repulsive. Heaney still shows decay by using the adjective “rank” and describes “cow dung” in order to show loss of innocence. Heaney also shows how his maturity was invasive and without choice by using words such as “angry” and “invaded”. In this stanza, he uses onomatopoeia with the words like “plop” and “slap” to illustrate the jumping of the frogs. He also uses military diction when he says the “frogs were cocked” like a gun, and “ducked through the hedges” like in camouflage. In that same quote, Heaney explains how the person has gone through the walls that the adults have put up. Heaney explains how the changes the person went through were new and alien to him when he says “a coarse-croaking that I had not heard before”. Heaney’s use of enjambment after the word heard, stretches the sentence and thus is accentuating its importance. He also describes how some embraced the change while others did not in the words “some hopped…some sat”. In summary, this second stanza shows the invasiveness and aggression of his maturity and his loss of innocence.

In the third and final stanza, Heaney expands on the ideas in the first two stanzas, but also shows their final effect. Heaney again uses military diction to further show the invasiveness of maturity when he says “poised like mud grenades”. He also describes “their blunt heads” as ‘farting” to show a total decay of his innocence. Heaney also shows how the person’s entire life from now on has been contaminated when he says “that if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it” The word “clutch” has connotations of force. The poem comes to its climax in the final stanza expanding the ideas of the first two stanzas and shows the effects of his maturity and loss of innocence. He now sees the frogs as the “great slimy kings”.

From the title of the poem, we expect to be shown change by how someone who loves nature loses that love. It is a poem about growing up. In it Heaney shows how our perceptions of things change and are determined by our maturity. In the poem he also seems to show how we lose a beautiful curiosity of nature as we get older. In conclusion, in this poem Seamus Heaney explores maturity that results in a loss of innocence. We see this how the person at first regards the young frogspawn with excitement and later his repulsion when he sees the mature