An example of this ‘threatening’ side, is Heaney’s ‘Trout’. This poem shows that the stereotypical idea of a beautifully swimming fish in water is actually wrong. Heaney describes the Trout as if it were a submarine, using military words like ‘torpedoed’, ‘bullet’, or ‘muzzle’. The Trout is also swimming against the current (‘ramrodding’) showing the strength and determination of the fish and nature itself. This is what makes Heaney’s work so interesting to read, as all of it is very original.
In contrast with ‘Trout’, is the poem ‘Pied Beauty’ written by Hopkins. A major theme threaded throughout this piece is God as a creator or preferably an artist using a selective colour scheme. Just like Monet the impressionist painter, Hopkins suggests that God creates using tiny dots of colour or stipples. Therefore every piece of the earth is made up of millions of tiny specks of colour. This theme leads to the underlying question: are we of any significance in God’s eyes?
Hopkins’ answer to this from his work is ‘Glory to be God for dappled things’. He is praising God for creating a never-ending source of beauty, meaning that death must be beautiful.
Hopkins presents nature with a feeling that everything in nature itself can be positive and negative. Examples of this are the three pairs of negatives he uses – ‘swift’, ‘slow’; ‘sweet’ ‘sour’; ‘adazzle’, ‘dim.’
Hopkins also gives the impression that nature is based around spots, ‘stipple’, ‘dapples’, ‘rose-moles’, and ‘freckled’. He is creating a picture with texture and detail only using words.
‘Death of a Naturalist’, by Heaney shows the innocence of a child travelling down to the pond every year to collect frog-spawn, but one year his imagination gets carried away, making him believe that the frogs are angry for him taking their spawn. The poem is based around an adventure in Heaney’s innocent mind. Heaney uses words with negative connotations to set the overall sinister atmosphere - ‘festered’, ‘heavy’, ‘rotted’, ‘sweltered’ and punishing’. Although this is contrasted in the following sentences with much softer and silky words like ‘bubbles gargled delicately’. This is a similarity between this and Hopkins’ ‘Pied Beauty’ as they both show the positive and negative side of nature.
The poem is split into two sections, the first one showing the innocent Heaney telling of his story. This poem is similar to ‘Pied Beauty’ as it shows the positive and negative form of nature. The first section, shows the young Heaney being enthralled by the frog-spawn and tells how every spring he “would fill jampotfuls of the jellied specks” (tadpoles). He tells us in the voice of his primary school teacher “how the daddy frog was called a bull frog… and how the mammy frog laid hundreds of egg and this was frog-spawn.” This demonstrates Heaney’s innocence and the clean but honest school teacher’s version of sex. However in the second half of the poem, Heaney goes back to the ‘flax-damn’ and sees ‘angry frogs’ have invaded it. The smell in the fields is stronger and the noise from the dam is louder than before, as ‘the air was thick with a bass chorus’. Heaney has lost his innocence and doesn’t like what the nimble swimming tadpoles have turned into. He is no longer in control and this is what he is scared of. He feels guilty for taking the frog- spawn and thinks that the frogs now want ‘vengeance’. This ‘nightmare’ has been creating purely by Heaney’s imagination, just like when you were a youngster and imagined that at night-time tree’s branches would become long windy arms etc.. he has brought all of these problems on by himself.
A poem that explores a similar change of attitude to nature is ‘The Prelude’ by William Wordsworth. Mans interaction with nature in this poem is similar to Heaney’s work, as they both seem to be potentially educative. In fact, nature functions as a moral force in this poem – although he’s not stealing from nature itself, it still clearly states that he considers what he is doing (taking the boat) to be wrong. Perhaps you could say that Wordsworth wanted to show nature in the eyes of God again, because there was no one else around to tell the man that he was doing wrong by taking the boat. Therefore this shows the great power of nature, whether God is responsible for it or not.
Heaneys’ ‘Blackberry-picking’ is very similar to his work in ‘Death of a Naturalist’ as they both show a young boy interacting with nature, but the way in which they describe the atmosphere suggests that nature isn’t always as beautiful as it is made out to be. Heaney uses negative connotations like ‘purple clot’, ‘big dark blobs’, and ‘rot’. This helps to set the sinister atmosphere the poet wants to create. None of the writers have included modern day quotes in their work. In other words Heaney uses quotes such as – ‘like thickened wine’. No child would think of saying this, the poet is thinking back to how the blackberries looked and tasted as a boy. ‘Blackberry Picking’ also shows the defensive side of nature, almost as if it is attacking the poet: ‘with thorn pricks’, ‘briars scratched’. Again these ideas have originated from the juvenile child turning something as simple as a nettle bush into one of natures weapons that is exposed to seize him, and him only.
One of Wordsworth’s poems that deals with nature and are very similar to Heaneys’ ‘Blackberry Picking’ and ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is ‘Nutting’. This is due to the poet feeling guilty for interfering with nature an example being where Heaney feels in the wrong for taking the frog-spawn, only this time Wordsworth is in the wrong for taking from the nut-tree.
Again, Wordsworth is relaying a childhood experience, taking his ‘huge wallet’ over his shoulders (to collect the nuts) and a ‘nutting crook in-hand’. Looking back, he is now realising that he was in the wrong and shows some of his emotions and feelings in his work. Although at the time, he thought collecting these fruits was enjoyable and extremely innocent, now looking back he feels guilty for interfering with nature’s way.
Another point in the poem in which he believes he is completely innocent point for interfering with God’s world, is where he discovers ‘a virgin scene!’ His senses become out of control and can hardly breath. He has found a place where no person has ever been before and realises how beautiful nature can really be. Wordsworth uses the senses a lot in his poetry purely to represent how nature can effect someone that badly. The readers can then build a picture in their minds of how greatly struck William Wordsworth truly was.
All of the poetry mentioned in this essay is based around mans relationship with nature. Whether this being a positive one, for example Digging where Heaney sees his Dad working skillfully with nature, or whether it be a negative form of nature, such as Death of a Naturalist where Heaney feels guilty for taking the frog-spawn when he returns to see angry frogs waiting for vengeance. The poems show both the beautiful and violent sides of nature using many childhood experiences to do so.
