Seamus Heaney was born in Derry on the 13th of April 1939 and had eight brothers and sisters to compete with while growing up.
In 1947 he went to St. Columb’s college in Derry, but was transferred to Queen’s University. In 1953 his brother, Christopher Heaney, was knocked down by a car. Seamus was distraught and expressed his feelings through many poems including Mid-term Break. He taught at Queens’s University for a while, just writing poems for a hobby, but he quickly became famous for his work and decided to shift his concentration on writing poems full-time. In 1965 he married Marie Delvin and a year later they had their first son Michael. This was the same year that “Death Of A Naturalist” was published. In 1968 he had another son, Christopher named after his dead brother.
Seamus Heaney mostly writes about himself and his past, like Death Of A Naturalist and Mid-Term Break, so that his emotions of love, mourning and general repulsion are realistic.
As we have seen both of these authors have children which would help them to see things the way a child would see them and also help them to recall their old experiences back once again.
These two poems differ in many ways, but the alikeness is still quite striking. The two poems are both split by time. In “Mrs. Tilcher’s Class” the poem is split into four stanzas, underlining the change of season, whereas in “Death of a Naturalist” the poem is split into two stanzas, showing the change in time when childhood innocence is lost.
Both of these poems depict the protagonist growing up. In Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, she uses second person narration and tells of how she can’t wait to grow up, for example “ you run through the gates impatient to be grown.” , whilst in “Death Of A Naturalist” He tells of how he is frightened of growing up and it revolts him. “I sickened, turned and ran” for example.
Both of these poems have a teacher, Mrs. Tilcher and Miss Walls, both female, who are considered to be the authority figures, who are wise, loving and always reliable to tell you something that you don’t know or don’t really understand. E.g. I Mrs. Tilcher’s class “you asked her how you were born.” And In death of a Naturalist “Miss Walls would tell us how the daddy frog was called a bullfrog.”
The fact that these poems are written by different genders changes their views on growing up entirely; Carol-Ann Duffy is excited at the prospect, as she attempts a go at adult language by saying “the heavy sexy sky.” While Seamus Heaney is nervous and afraid of the world by thinking that “The great slime kings were gathered there for vengeance.” He means the frogs of course.
Both poems feature frogs, which is a very basic way for children to learn but not fully understand the concepts of sex. Basically it tells the children how the frogs got there whilst not revealing the whole process. We could also view the frog spawn that both poets include to be a child’s view of sperm, as they wouldn’t really know about it.
Carol-Ann Duffy goes one step further and says “A rough boy told you how you were born.” Which really takes a leap towards the loss of childhood innocence as children wouldn’t have heard about sex or birth before.
The two poems are made to make the readers feel differently about childhood innocence and growing up. Carol-Ann Duffy makes the reader feel safe, but aware of the dangers that are going on outside school. “Brady and Hindley, fading like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.” She couldn’t really be bothered about that because the teacher would keep you safe. Carol-Ann Duffy is very excited about growing up and thinks that its great, but doesn’t really know what is to come as she says that “the sky is sexy.” without knowing how to properly use the word.
In Death of a Naturalist Heaney is curious about nature in the first stanza and would very much like to get involved in nature despite the horrible odours and scenes, but in the second stanza, nature repulses him and he sees it as a weapon when he says that the frogs were ”poised like mud grenades.” This shows us that his childhood innocence has gone, as he feels in a somber, panic-stricken mood.
Both poets use a very clever array of literary devices. Carol-Ann Duffy tends to focus on metaphors “the inky tadpoles changed from commas to exclamation marks” similes “like the faint uneasy smudge of a mistake” and personification “An xylophone’s nonsense” to give the reader a good idea of how children see the world.
Seamus Heaney tends to focus on onomatopoeia “coarse croaking that I had not heard before.” He does this to draw the readers in and then repulse them.
In Mrs. Tilcher’s Class is not very well structured in terms of rhythm, as the lines lengths are all over the place to show how a child speaks without being embarrassed, but in Death of a Naturalist it is structured to a long steady beat to around ten or eleven syllables per line to make it easier to read.
There is scarce rhyme in Mrs. Tilcher’s Class as a child couldn’t structure a rhyme, but Seamus Heaney does include some.
Overall I find that the two poemse remarkably similar as they are both school based involve frogs as an early guide to sex and talk about the loss of childhood innocence. However they both have completely different views to how good it is.
