A Comparison of Death of a Naturalist and Digging by Seamus Heaney

Nature, there is just something about it that intrigues all of us. Whether it be the changing of the leaves during fall, the first snowy morning during winter or the birth of new life during the spring. We all have our different ways of connecting to nature and expressing those connections. In the poem Spring and All by William Carlos Williams he is expressing his thoughts and emotions about spring. While in the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost he expresses the connections one can make with a snowy winter night. During this essay comparisons and contrasts will be made between these two poems and how they express their connections with nature.

Both poets, Frost and Heaney wrote in the pastoral tradition, drawing on the natural landscape of Bellaghy, Co Derry and Frost and the farmland of New England, Massachusetts. Respectively Frost is an influence on Heaney evident in the ‘sound of sense’ and Heaney borrowed the Frostian voice of rural vernacular with his use of unadorned language and natural speech rhythms, giving both poets work a conversational intimacy. Likewise, both poets used the everyday quotidian to illuminate universal truths and to extrapolate deeper meanings from ordinary. Similarly they used interactions with the natural world to produce profound revelations about the past, mortality, human loss, childhood, the creative process, journeys and self-discovery.

Finally, I find that both poems show deep concern for the environment and man impact on the natural ways of nature. Robert Gray has done this with an exquisite choice of techniques and his language to strongly convey his

In “Traveling through the Dark” by William Stafford and “Woodchucks” Maxine Kumin, man vs. natural death situations are present. Both poems share some similarities and differences. In “Traveling through the Dark”, the speaker is compassionate and considerate towards the dead deer and whose main goal is to get it off the road to prevent future deaths. However, in “Woodchucks” the speaker shows violence in killing the woodchuck, to the point of killing the whole bird family. In both poems by William Stafford and Maxine Kumin, the poets each emphasize different attitudes toward animals; Stafford showing compassion while Kumin shows vengeance, through the use of vivid imagery, explicit diction, and metaphors.

Robert Frost is a twentieth-century American poet, famous for his unique style and American influence. Throughout his life, Frost had experienced severe losses to both his family and his livelihood. Despite those challenges, Frost used his experiences to fuel his passion for poetry. This is reflected in many of his works, as they portray themes of death to bring out the significance of moments in life. In the poems “Reluctance”, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “After Apple-Picking”, and “An Old Man’s Winter”, he explores such themes of mortality and uses it to tell meaningful stories.

Both poems illustrate how the two authors are trying to cope with the death of close family members. Heaney opts to face death by describing it directly. He narrates what happened during his brother’s funeral allowing readers to experience the grief that engulfed the

Both poems have been written about death dying and the loss of loved ones, in a once thriving Welsh mining community. The first poem by Mike Jenkins is a reflection and remembrance by a Father who tragically and suddenly lost his son in a horrific and unfortunate disaster that happened in Aberfan in 1966, where many young lives were lost.

Comparing Digging by Seamus Heaney, Catrin by Gilliam Clarke, The Little Boy Lost y William Blake and Tichborne's Elegy by Charles Tichborne

In “The Chambered Nautilus,” the nautilus undergoes years of physical growth. Throughout its life, “the spiral [grows] / leaving the past year’s dwelling for a new” (Holmes 1). Time and time again, the nautilus must leave behind its old shell to situate itself in a new home. Never can the nautilus grow old in its shell, for all organisms must face physical abandonment. In “Grass,” battle after battle occurs on the same Earth. After the bloodshed is over, the grass “shovels them under…[and] covers all” (Sandburg 1). Once war ceases to continue, so does the remembrance from society. Since time passes and the physical damage is no longer present, people are emotionally detached from the tragedy. Both poems agree that all concerns will be eventually be abandoned, hence they agree that the deceased are

But, it is Heaney’s explication of the everyday actions that create the complex beauty of his works. The act of the rotting flax-dam in and the bountiful frogspawn harvests for the children with “dragonflies, spotted butterflies, (line 7)” in “Death of a Naturalist”, Heaney sets up the rich and fertile hills of Ireland. This visualization adds depth and a sense of ethos to his work. The children rushing through the woods to pick the bounty of blackberries before the plenty of animals do in “Blackberry-Picking” is another example of the beauty of Ireland. Irelands fertility is a common theme within Heaney’s poetry, which is probably due to his connection with it himself. Most Irish people rely on this fertility of the land to survive and it is very important in Ireland as a whole. One of his more famous poems “Digging” expands on this beauty by comparing farming in soil with a spade to the writing on paper with

The message of Text 2 is also built on the premise that nature is important. The poet asks the crane why it pursues its solitary ways (line 4). Eventually he claims that the bird’s purpose is to guide him on his lonely path in life, as stated in the final stanza: “He who, from zone to zone, / Guides through the boundless sky they certain flight, / In the long way that I must tread alone, / Will lead my steps aright.” Its message is very characteristic of Romantic poetry: We can learn how to live through observing nature. As in Text 1, the premise that we must preserve nature and look to it for inspiration is never questioned but affirmed.

Throughout both poems, Robert Frost employs a dramatic approach in the scenes and dialogues of his characters as well as using words that gives readers visual aids when reading both poems. Although each poem has its unique style of writing, there are also similarities with the topics Robert Frost addresses. Firstly, ‘’Home Burial’’ presents the reader with a married couple who are going through a strained relationship due to the loss and burial of their child. The child’s mother finds herself sad whenever she spies her child’s grave through a window.

Poets used nature as a colour palette to paint a theme in their works. Mortality’s two faces of living and dying were exhibited through metaphors and imageries. In “When I have fears that I may cease to be,” the first quatrain (Keats 2-4) produced images of agriculture. His thoughts were compared to crops, thus, the author himself was a farm. A farm was full of life, containing lush greenery and a wildlife that roamed around. It is a breathing living thing. The phrase “.. on the shore” (Keats 12) was an interesting word choice given for a person on the brink of death. It gave the image that life was a state between nature elements of land and water. The last words “ .. to nothingness do sink” (Keats 14) compared dying to diving into an ocean of oblivion. It gave the reader an image of afterlife as a vast unknown. These word choices picked from nature made the reader feel emotions of fear and mystery which were closely associated with

The poem “Digging,” is an explorative revelation into the identity of the poet, Seamus Heaney. The poem reflects upon the author’s journey to veer from but ultimately honor his rich family traditions. The author’s family, one of dedicated potato and turf diggers, pass on the ideals of commitment and diligence through their work from generation to generation. Seamus Heaney, the first man in the past three generations has chosen not to dig in such a way. Rather, Heaney

The two passages I will be comparing the aspects of death in is the Short Story “The School” and the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” these two stories have some similarities when it comes to the aspect of death. However, I believe that the short story does do a lot more than the poem does in this case. Mostly because of how much longer the short story is than the poem. In the short story “The School” there are so many things literally dying in the story, and the school seems to have bad luck, because most of the things they bring in eventually dies somehow, for example all the trees the kids planted all died, and there were many more things. The Story told you exactly what was dying. What this short story does that a poem doesn’t is, that there are many things more going on in this short story, and if you need to go back, and try to find certain things in this story it would not be hard to tear it apart, and try to understand every line. In the poem it is much shorter, and we do not get to know much about the characters, it is harder to go back, and look at certain points in the poem to be able to understand it 100%. In this Poem a man is on his horse going somewhere, and this poem gives you kind of a dark and mysterious feeling. This man stops in the middle of someone’s woods, and just stares out into it, for a pretty long time before going on his way. What this poem did that the short story did not was confuse me. It was hard to understand what was going on in