Poetic techniques allow experience to be represented in an intense and compressed way.
INTRODUCTO
Good morning all. My name is Joseph Brough, and I am here to explain how Seamus Heaney compresses his life experiences into two of his poems, “Death of a Naturalist” and “Blackberry-Picking”. Heaney’s use of language techniques such as meter, diction and consonance is fine-tuned in these poems to construct a compressed and intense representation of childhood joy, growing up, and the subsequent loss of innocence. Heaney considers these factors to be central to the experience of youth that he presents readers.
SETTING + PERSONA
To begin, if you would so kindly turn your attention to “Death of a Naturalist”. This poem’s persona introduces us to …show more content…
But Heaney wants us to understand that an innocent child can find even the repellent side of nature to be appealing. He leavens, yet also intensifies the image with the juxtaposition “bubbles gargled delicately”. Heaney’s use of alliteration in “jampotfuls of the jellied / specks” highlights the sweetness of ‘jam’ and ‘jelly’, so the frogspawn seems more agreeable.
SUMMARY
In “Death of a Naturalist”, Heaney offers an intense retelling of his childhood experience in the Irish landscape. The persona’s positive interaction with the environment, constructed through techniques such as consonance and alliteration and presented as vivid multisensory imagery, functions as a compressed representation of childhood innocence and love for the outdoors.
SEGUE + INTRO
Heaney constructs a similar scene in “Blackberry-Picking”. This poem comes immediately after “Death of a Naturalist” in Heaney’s first book of poetry, and it recounts the memory of collecting berries in Summer, only to find that they rot within a few days.
YOUTH IN …show more content…
His excitement and enthusiasm for nature and the Irish landscape is conveyed through his speakers, and the language that he has painstakingly tuned to meet his purpose. However, this is only half of the tale that these texts tell.
BLOODY
“Blackberry-Picking” is full of violent and bloody symbolism: Heaney writes, “summer’s blood was in [the berries] / leaving stains upon the tongue”. He also makes reference to “Bluebeard”, a French folktale about an gent who murdered a series of wives in a blood-stained room under his castle – in the same way that the blackberry-pickers hoard their bloody haul in a shed. Heaney’s references to ‘lust’ and ‘sweet flesh’ convey an overall sense of unwitting rapaciousness throughout the hunt.
BUILDING ANXIETY
The key point here is the contrast between the hunters’ joyful innocence and Heaney’s menacing subtext. The poet wants to build our anxiety about the children’s actions – this is the same anxiety that we feel for the impending ‘death’ of the naturalist. The rhyme and meter of the poem have a similar effect: the entire poem follows a very loose rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter that are difficult to follow. Consider the
INTRODUCTO
Good morning all. My name is Joseph Brough, and I am here to explain how Seamus Heaney compresses his life experiences into two of his poems, “Death of a Naturalist” and “Blackberry-Picking”. Heaney’s use of language techniques such as meter, diction and consonance is fine-tuned in these poems to construct a compressed and intense representation of childhood joy, growing up, and the subsequent loss of innocence. Heaney considers these factors to be central to the experience of youth that he presents readers.
SETTING + PERSONA
To begin, if you would so kindly turn your attention to “Death of a Naturalist”. This poem’s persona introduces us to …show more content…
But Heaney wants us to understand that an innocent child can find even the repellent side of nature to be appealing. He leavens, yet also intensifies the image with the juxtaposition “bubbles gargled delicately”. Heaney’s use of alliteration in “jampotfuls of the jellied / specks” highlights the sweetness of ‘jam’ and ‘jelly’, so the frogspawn seems more agreeable.
SUMMARY
In “Death of a Naturalist”, Heaney offers an intense retelling of his childhood experience in the Irish landscape. The persona’s positive interaction with the environment, constructed through techniques such as consonance and alliteration and presented as vivid multisensory imagery, functions as a compressed representation of childhood innocence and love for the outdoors.
SEGUE + INTRO
Heaney constructs a similar scene in “Blackberry-Picking”. This poem comes immediately after “Death of a Naturalist” in Heaney’s first book of poetry, and it recounts the memory of collecting berries in Summer, only to find that they rot within a few days.
YOUTH IN …show more content…
His excitement and enthusiasm for nature and the Irish landscape is conveyed through his speakers, and the language that he has painstakingly tuned to meet his purpose. However, this is only half of the tale that these texts tell.
BLOODY
“Blackberry-Picking” is full of violent and bloody symbolism: Heaney writes, “summer’s blood was in [the berries] / leaving stains upon the tongue”. He also makes reference to “Bluebeard”, a French folktale about an gent who murdered a series of wives in a blood-stained room under his castle – in the same way that the blackberry-pickers hoard their bloody haul in a shed. Heaney’s references to ‘lust’ and ‘sweet flesh’ convey an overall sense of unwitting rapaciousness throughout the hunt.
BUILDING ANXIETY
The key point here is the contrast between the hunters’ joyful innocence and Heaney’s menacing subtext. The poet wants to build our anxiety about the children’s actions – this is the same anxiety that we feel for the impending ‘death’ of the naturalist. The rhyme and meter of the poem have a similar effect: the entire poem follows a very loose rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter that are difficult to follow. Consider the