Discuss the poems Death of a Naturalist and Personal Helicon by

“Poets are the record keepers and moral consciences of their times.” In response to this view, explore connections between the ways in which Heaney and Sheers write about memories. As poets are known to be record keepers memories are a key theme that poets often write about due to it being a theme with such a wide range. Heaney and Sheers have both written poems about memories. The two poems that i have chosen to focus on for this essay are ‘Mametz Wood’ by Owen Sheers and ‘The Strand at Lough Beg’ by Seamus Heaney.

When humans and nature come together, they either coexist harmoniously because nature's inhabitants and humans share a mutual respect and understanding for each other, or they clash because humans attempt to control and force their ways of life on nature. The poems, "The Bull Moose" by Alden Nowlan, "The Panther" by Rainer Maria Rilke, "Walking the Dog" by Howard Nemerov, and "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop, describe what happens when humans and nature come together. I believe that when humans and nature come together they either clash and conflict because individuals destroy and attempt to control nature, which is a reflection of their powerful need to control themselves, or humans live peacefully with nature because not only do they

may look nice and the visual rewards may be great, but that it takes a

Words like slap, pop, slobber, farting, and croaked illustrates the realism of how the flax-dam is. The use of using onomatopoeia is to describe the nature and the surroundings, and to show the uncertainty that is going through the boy’s mind in the second stanza. Sibilant sounds are also used in the poem. Words like slap, slime, sods, and spawn show the uncertainty and the tension that the boy is under. Heaney also uses stop sounds to show his frightful and uncertain mood (Bluebottles, Poised, Grenades, Mud, Farting, Blunt, Kings, Vengeance etc). This stops the reader from flowing which gives a sense of uncertainty.

Heaney continues to do this by glorifying the frogspawn, using alliteration “jam pots of the jellied specks”. This creates a soft and gentle rhythm for the reader, portraying Heaney’s fascination with nature a child.

Writer Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry, Northern Ireland, 1939. The beginnings of the Second World War therefore aligned with his upbringing and he was witness to conflict from a young age. In addition, Northern Ireland was a divided country which saw disunity within between protestants and catholics but also unionists and loyalists, with unionists calling for independence against British rule. Requiem for the Croppies is a poem published in Death of a Naturalist (1966) which primarily deals with the 1798 Irish Rebellion, an uprising against Britain. Heaney conveys the oppressive nature of British rule, the mistreatment imposed by such and positions the reader to empathise with the rebels. He does this through the use of a sonnet structure, rhythm, inclusive diction, the creation of a binary opposition and multisensory imagery and figurative language including similes and personification. Thus the poem’s aesthetic is political as it aims to create a sense of nationalism and encourage Irish independence. In a similar way, Death of A Naturalist (1966) is political in challenging the role of the Catholic church in Ireland and confrontational in showing the effects of this through the use of figurative language, metaphors, structure and the formation of a persona.

The title of the poem “Death of a Naturalist” is very suggestive itself; the death of someone who loved nature. However, it is about an individual whose emotions fluctuates towards nature as they grow up. In the first stanza of the poem Heaney uses a range of literary devices such as imagery, “green and heavy headed” and “warm thick slobber” which gives the reader a concrete representation of an impression, a feeling, or an idea that Heaney is trying to portray; which is the freedom and carefree attitude that children have as they do not worry what others think of them and they only care about having ‘fun’. Heaney also tries to show the curiosity and the early education “Miss Walls would tell us how the daddy frog was called a bullfrog”.

Poets use many ways when they want to communicate something using poems. Poems are used as a means of passing ideas, information and expression of feelings. This has made the poets to use the natural things and images that people can relate with so that they can make these poems understandable. The most common forms of writing that are used by the poets are the figurative language for example imagery and metaphors. In addition, the poets use the natural landscape in their attempt to explore the philosophical questions. Therefore, this essay will explore the forms that have been used by the poets in writing poems using the natural landscape. The essay will be based on poems such as ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by

In his 2006 collection, ‘District and Circle’, Seamus Heaney responds to the ever-changing and developing world around him. To do so he often relies upon the exploration of the past, memory, and personal identity through the use of language. In the second poem of ‘District and Circle’, ‘A Shiver’, Seamus Heaney is dependent upon these concepts to construct a thematically rich poem.

Heaney’s poem incorporates the rule of three several times throughout the poem in descriptive examples such as, “nuisance, tripping, falling.” By having the rule of three, there is a constant rhyme scheme as well throughout the poem. There are eight syllables per line, thus making it an iambic-tetrameter. It has a constant rhyme scheme and therefore is not a free verse.

Seamus Heaney once said: “The fact of the matter is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry itself - as a vocation and an elevation almost.” Heaney is known and praised for his works and love of poetry, which was shaped by his family and experiences. Heaney’s poems reveal his close relationship with nature, but they’re also unique in the sense that he manages to convey a universal message while focusing on an individual idea. Shaped by his quaint life on his childhood farm, family, famous poets, education, and the numerous teaching jobs he had over the years, Seamus Heaney used this influence to create poetry that balances a sense of natural speech with his commitment to what he described as

Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland, 1939 and spent a large portion of his life in Dublin (“Seamus Heaney”). Internationally critically acclaimed as one of the most influential poets of the 20th century his works serve to aspire a rediscovery of natural beauty. The beginning of Heaney’s career took off in Ireland where he was first recognized for his poetry collections Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark (“Seamus Heaney”). Even though Heaney’s literature if very influenced by his life in Ireland and contains great depth, the general themes remain painless and relatable. Heaney reflects simplicity through his short phrases, straightforward but philosophical diction and syntax, and reference to place, to reveal his perspective on the underappreciated beauty of the most basic ideas.

Death of a naturalist is about Seamus Heaney as a child going to this pond where every year he went to collect frogspawn. The poem is split up into two sections called stanzas. He starts of the poem with some negative imagery to describe the place where he goes. The second part of the first stanza he tell us about how he use to fill jam pots with the frogspawn

and it is evident that he does not like the killing as he uses words

O’Connor’s vivid topics of life and death are fuelled by his observation of nature. This is reflected in a whole range of his oeuvre, particularly in ‘Turtles Hatching’ and ‘The Sun-Hunters’, as they provide specific animalistic details to the diverse struggle of life that flora and fauna endure. Through the creative employment of figurative language and literal techniques, such as metaphors and the extensive use of verbs, O’Connor is able to address the complexity of life and death in means of teaching us to value our life.