ADDITIONAL NOTES ON HEANEY – FOR PART 2
FORMAL ORAL COMMENTARY
‘Death of a Naturalist’ (1966) was Heaney’s first volume of poems and announces his
inspiration and background as a poet, as well as the role of nature as teacher during
his boyhood.
DEATH (or LOSS) is present in many forms in this volume: in the title poem, where
it refers to the death of innocence and the ‘naturalist,’ the seasonal decay and rotting
of ‘Blackberry Picking’ (and possibly of childish hope), the death of Heaney’s infant
brother Christopher, recorded in ‘Mid-Term Break,’ the murder of the superfluous
puppies and kittens in ‘The Early Purges’ and even subtly in ‘Follower’ (cycle of
generations, anticipating his father’s death) and ‘Digging’ (death of tradition?).
Another key theme treated in the volume is CHILDHOOD and the role of nature in
educating the child. Several of the poems deal with the limitations of childish
language, and its incapacity to express more adult experience, such as in ‘Death of
Naturalist’- “But best of all….”. The childish language of the first section of the poem
disappears in the second. There is also a fascination with language shown through the
use of ONOMATOPOEIA, and ALLITERATION, where Heaney is relishing the
sounds of words, almost like a child discovering language. Implicit morals are drawn
from nature- e.g. don’t take more than you need (‘Blackberry Picking’) or the sexual
education of ‘Death of a Naturalist,’ where nature is the boy’s real teacher, rather than
the self-censoring Miss Walls (could her name refer symbolically to the barrier she
puts up between her pupils and the truth?). Nature for Heaney, as for Wordsworth, is
presented as a MORAL force- e.g. note the retributive function of nature (the frogs) in
‘Death of a Naturalist.’
The volume opens with ‘Digging’ and closes with ‘Personal Helicon,’ which are both
concerned with the POET’S CRAFT, another of Heaney’s central themes. ‘Digging’
is about the genesis or birth of Heaney’s poetry (its raw material), while ‘Personal
Helicon’ is concerned with the direction, the purpose of poetry “To see myself,/To set
the darkness echoing.”
The volume is also dominated by silence, or at least, noise (e.g. of the frogs in ‘Death
of a Naturalist’ and the rat that SLAPS across his refection in ‘Personal Helicon’).
SPEECH AND SILENCE seen as another theme of the volume. Silence seems valued
above speech (not poetry, but speech) and the choice of becoming a poet seems a
betrayal of the rural tradition to which Heaney’s family belonged. The line in
‘Follower’ describing Heaney’s father as a man “who keeps stumbling/Behind me and
will not go away” could mean his father is present in his mind as poetic subject matter
(and is silent). This could also link to the political context of Northern Ireland and the
inter-sectarian violence, where a careless word or reference could betray your political
or religious allegiances and cause you trouble.
The entire volume of ‘Death of a Naturalist’ can be viewed as a journey into the poet
himself- an introspective volume, concluded with ‘Personal helicon,’ which
acknowledges the narcissistic, self-contemplating element of all poetry.
Critics have noted the influence of the Hughes in Heaney’s early poems, as Hughes’
‘idealised’ Georgian treatment of nature is opposed by Heaney, who focuses on the
rawness, the harsh actuality, the predatoriness and corruptibility of nature.