‘I sickened, turned and ran’
So we can see he doesn’t feel the same passion about nature any more, it was a “death” of the naturalist.
‘Digging’ is about a young man who feels that he is not worthy to follow in his father’s footsteps. He tells the reader about how great his father and grandfather were, but throughout the poem he says very little about himself. Towards the end his mind is changed. Although his ancestors were hard working men who earned their living through digging, he feels that his writing is a worthy path to follow. He will “dig” with his pen.
Toward the end of both these poems the feelings change. In each poem the writer feels one thing at the beginning, but toward the conclusion his mind is changed, either for the better, in ‘Digging’, or for the worse, in ‘Death of a Naturalist’. It could be said that he had a change in perspective.
Even so, both poems have a deeper and more thoughtful meaning. ‘Death of Naturalist’ appears superficially, to be about a young boy and his relationship with nature. Looking deeper into the meaning of the poem it has a different significance. It is about the changes people go through as they grow up. In this case a young boy is very naive and innocent, he loves nature, wildlife and all the things around him, but as he grows up his views on life change substantially. He is no longer naïve or innocent. This is reflected in his actions in the second stanza when confronted with the frogs he had once felt an affinity with.
A similar meaning can be taken from ‘Digging’. It is about how people feel unworthy when compared to their parents. It also depicts the respect and awe, which children can feel toward their parents, and how this young boy looked up to his father and the way in which his father lived.
‘I have no spade to follow men like them’
Toward the end of the poem, in a similar way to ‘Death of Naturalist’, there is a change in the mind of the writer. As he now feels worthy to call himself his father’s son.
‘Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it’
This gives the reader the impression that the poet finally feels he has chosen a worthy profession. He can ‘dig’ with his pen.
This metaphor illustrates his connection with the past, he now feels he is following in the footsteps of his own flesh and blood.
Each poem is structured in quite a different way.
‘Death of Naturalist’ uses two stanzas. The writer wanted to create a ‘before and after’ feel to the poem. In the first stanza the boy is young and interested in the whole world around him, there is a charm in his naivety. In the second stanza however, he has lost all innocence, he has become cynical, scathing and sees the repugnant reality of nature.
‘Digging’ has random stanza length. The writer is writing about memories. It gives the impression he is writing spontaneously and from the heart. The memories creating a natural flow of reminiscences giving the impression of his memories writing the poem, rather than himself. However, in reality the words are well considered.
‘Death of Naturalist’ doesn’t have a rhyming scheme. It is told in prose rather than verse. Its lack of structured rhyme accentuates the intricate imagery that the poem evokes. ‘Digging’ starts off with some evidence of a rhyming scheme as in
‘Under the table a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground’.
This rhyming scheme does not continue for the entirety of the poem. He wanted to give the impression that he was writing spontaneously as memories flooded into his head.
A similarity between the structures of the two poems is the writer’s use of enjambment. This is the continuation of a sentence from one line to another, without the use of any punctuation. In ‘Death of Naturalist’ and in ‘Digging’, it is used to help emphasise the fact that the writer wanted to create a dialogue with the reader that would read like a story, in a more narrative style.
The writer uses similar language in both of the poems, onomatopoeic words are common; these words are intended to be a vocal imitation of the sound associated with his memories. These words are more frequent in ‘Death of Naturalist’ than in ‘Digging’. In ‘Death of Naturalist’ the writer uses words such as
‘gargled’, ‘slobber’, ‘burst’, ‘slap’ etc.
In ‘Digging’ the words,
‘rasping’, ‘slicing’, ‘squelch’ and ‘slap’ are used.
Seamus Heaney uses sounds to give the poems more imagery, or sound scape. He could not have achieved this as effectively using rhyme. Memories are often prompted by the senses, by smell, taste and sound. In both these poems he has tried to evoke our senses through the use of this onomatopoeic language. This provides particularly strong imagery that takes you with the poet, back to his childhood.
A further similarity between ‘Death of Naturalist’ and ‘Digging’ is in the use of alliteration. Some examples of this in ‘Digging’ are
‘gravelly ground’, ‘tall tops’, ‘curt cuts.’
All of these are describing images associated with digging. Showing how much emphasis the writer places on what his father and grandfather did for their living. He is obviously extremely proud of them and looks up to them with great admiration.
Some examples of alliteration in ‘Death of Naturalist’ are,
‘Flax-dam festered’, ‘coarse croaking’ and ‘jampotfuls of the jellied’.
These aren’t describing one particular aspect of his life, but all have a strong effect when reading the poem as it makes for easier understanding. The words seem to almost roll of the tongue.
In both these poems the writer uses metaphors and similes. For example,
‘Blunt heads farting.’
There may be more to this metaphor than meets the eye. The definitions of blunt from the dictionary are as follows
‘Having an edge or point that is not sharp, without an edge,’ ‘Aggressively outspoken, direct or straightforward,’
‘Insensitive, dull.’
From this, the word ‘blunt’ may have been used to say that the frogs were insensitive toward the boy even though he watched them grow from tadpoles into frogs.
The definitions for ‘fart’ from the dictionary are:
‘An explosion of intestinal wind, a boring person’
The writer may have meant farting in the sense that they have grown from ‘nimble swimming tadpoles’ into older, ‘boring’ animals rather than the young, exciting animals they were. This may also show the different changes that humans go through in their lifetime. This also becomes a metaphor for his life.
In studying and analysing each of these Seamus Heaney poems, I have found that their meanings have changed and developed on analysis and differ from my first impression.
When reading ‘Death of Naturalist’ for the first time, my first impression was of young boy who loved the countryside, nature and frogspawn. Looking at the language in more detail, it seems that the poem symbolises how children can change as they grow and in doing so, view life differently. He grew from a young, naive schoolboy, full of innocence and optimistic dreams, into his teenage years, a sudden, stark reality. The language used in the second stanza shows this. It is more sophisticated than the previous stanza when he writes as a little boy.
‘To a coarse croaking that I had not heard’ this seems much more developed than
‘Bubbles gargled delicately’ in the first stanza.
At first glance, ‘Digging’ appears to be about the poet as a small boy watching his father and grandfather dig the earth. His father planting potatoes,
‘Stooping in rhythm through potato drills’
His grandfather digging turf,
‘My grandfather could cut more turf in a day than any man’.
When we consider the poem in more detail, it illustrates a young writer’s disillusionment; he feels he isn’t worthy to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. However, Heaney in the final stanza, does seem to reconcile himself to the fact that his talents as a writer are worthy of credit from his family.
In analysing both of these poems we can look at the similarities; they are both autobiographical, using childhood memories. They both encompass an affinity with nature and with life in the open air. I feel the similarities between the two poems are more pertinent than their differences.
My opinion of ‘Death of Naturalist’ is that it is easy to relate to this poem as it is very much centred on growing up and the changes that humans go through in a lifetime, and how they view things differently as they mature. The use of language is evocative, colourful and full of the love of life as well as the subsequent disappointment as viewed by the poet, both as a boy and in his later years.
‘Digging’ in my opinion is an excellent poem, it has random stanza length which gives the idea of freedom. There is a rhythm in its style and it evokes a certain feeling of nostalgia that I find summons up images I can relate to.
‘By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man’,
This line not only refers to the continuity of the family but also the pride and love felt between them.
Both these poems use effective language and hold potent meaning throughout.
