''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966) is a collection of poems written by

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

, who received the 1995

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

. The collection was Heaney's first major published volume, and includes ideas that he had presented at meetings of

The Belfast Group The Belfast Group was a poets' workshop which was organized by Philip Hobsbaum when he moved to Belfast in October 1963 to lecture in English at Queen's University. As with Hobsbaum's earlier discussion group in London, known as The Group, the ...

. ''Death of a Naturalist'' won the

Cholmondeley Award The Cholmondeley Awards ( ) are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...

, the Gregory Award, the

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to ...

, and the

Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman of the publisher Faber & Faber. It recognises a single volume of poetry or fiction by a United Kingdom, Iri ...

. The work consists of 34 short poems and is largely concerned with childhood experiences and the formulation of adult identities, family relationships, and rural life. The collection begins with one of Heaney's best-known poems, "Digging", and includes the acclaimed "Death of a Naturalist" and "Mid-Term Break". In 2022, ''Death of a Naturalist'' was included on the "

Big Jubilee Read The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of e ...

" list of 70 books by

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

authors, selected to celebrate the

Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II The Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II was the international celebration in 2022 marking the Platinum jubilee, 70th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. It was the first time that any History of monarchy in the U ...

Poems

"Death of a Naturalist", the collection's second poem, details the exploits of a young boy collecting frogspawn from a flax-dam. The narrator remembers everything he saw and felt at those times. He then remembers his teacher telling him all about frogs in a section that speaks volumes about childhood innocence. Finally, we hear about a trip to the flax-dam that went wrong. He feels threatened by the frogs and flees. His interest in nature has gone – this is the death of a "naturalist" suggested in the poem's title. The poem makes extensive use of

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...

and a

simile A simile () is a type of figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes are often contrasted with metaphors, where similes necessarily compare two things using words such as "like", "as", while metaphors often create an implicit c ...

that compares the behaviour of the

amphibians Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniote, anamniotic, tetrapod, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class (biology), class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all Tetrapod, tetrapods, but excl ...

to warfare ("Some sat poised like mud grenades") amongst other techniques. "Mid-Term Break" is a reflection on the death of Heaney's younger brother, Christopher, while Heaney was at school.Heaney, Seamus: "Mid-Term Break"
/ref> He describes his parents' different ways of displaying grief, visitors paying their respects, and his encounter of his brother's corpse in its coffin the next morning. The poem focuses on concrete particulars of Heaney's experience and "captures a boy's unfolding consciousness of death." The final line ("A four foot box, a foot for every year.") emphasizes death's finality. "Digging" is one of Heaney's most-read poems. It addresses themes of time and history and the cyclical nature of the two through the narrator's characterization of his grandfather digging in the bog on their family farm. He admires his grandfather's skill and relationship to the spade, but states that he will dig with his pen instead. This is significant as it demonstrates Heaney's ownership of his occupation as a poet and names his pen as his primary and most powerful tool. While excavating the mental bog of his mind by writing, Heaney believes he can gain a better understanding of the history living in the land around him, and a better understanding of himself. "Personal Helicon" is the final poem in Heaney's first collection. Helicon refers to the mountain in Greek mythology which is dedicated to the Greek God Apollo, who is the God of poetry. On the mountain live nine muses, each of whom represent a poetic inspiration. In Heaney's Helicon is a well which indicates that his inspiration comes from within the earth rather than above it. This theme resonates across his work in the poem "Digging" or in the later Bog Poems. He also states that he rhymes "to see myself", echoing the common theme found in the poem "Digging" that he uses poetry to understand the depths of the well and his reflection within it. Throughout the poem, Heaney walks the reader through each stage of his life up until the point he wrote Personal Helicon. He expresses to the reader how he loses sight of the outside inspirations he sought after as a child, and instead looks to himself. This can be seen when he states, "To stare, big-eyed Narcissus into some spring is beneath all adult dignity". In this quote he parallels himself to Narcissus, a hunter in Greek Mythology who is cursed to fall in love with his own reflection by the goddess Nemesis after he shuns Echo, an Oread nymph. The reader can see that for a short time after his college experience, Heaney relies on only himself for inspiration. Eventually he realizes his mistake, and unlike Narcissus, is able to bring himself back to reality.

Reception

''Death of a Naturalist'' was received with mostly positive reviews and helped Heaney gain recognition on an international scale. Several of the poems had been published previously in pamphlets like "Eleven Poems" (1965) and gained attention with reviews in the ''Belfast Telegraph'', ''Death of a Naturalist'' received over 30 noteworthy reviews in Ireland, England and the United States. Fellow poets

Michael Longley Michael George Longley (27 July 1939 – 22 January 2025) was a Northern Irish poet. In his later years Longley observed: "It's a mystery where poems come from. If I knew where poems came from I would go there ... When I write a poem I am movi ...

and

Brendan Kennelly Timothy Brendan Kennelly (17 April 1936 – 17 October 2021), usually known as Brendan Kennelly, was an Irish poet and novelist. He was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College Dublin until 2005. Following his retirement he was a prof ...

also praised Heaney's work. Critics generally remarked on Heaney's skilful use of metaphor and language as well as his attention to detail and rural imagery. Some reviewers found the volume a bit superfluous. John Unterecker of ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' stated that he found some poems possessed "a wit that is sometimes heavy-handed".

* Digging * Death of a Naturalist * The Barn * An Advancement of Learning * Blackberry-Picking * Churning Day * The Early Purges * Follower * Ancestral Photograph * Mid-Term Break * Dawn Shoot * At a Potato Digging * For the Commander of the 'Eliza' * The Diviner * Turkeys Observed * Cow in Calf * Trout * Waterfall * Docker * Poor Women in a City Church * Gravities * Twice Shy * Valediction * Lovers on Aran * Poem * Honeymoon Flight * Scaffolding * Storm on the Island * Synge on Aran * Saint Francis and the Birds * In Small Townlands * The Folk Singers * The Play Way * Personal Helicon

External links

Death of a Naturalist ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966) is a collection of poems written by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. The collection was Heaney's first major published volume, and includes ideas that he had presented at meetings o ...

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

References

{{Irish poetry 1966 poetry books Irish poetry collections Poetry by Seamus Heaney Faber & Faber books

Poems

Reception

Contents

External links

Further reading

See also

References