Analysing 'Death of a Naturalist'
I can analyse how Heaney presents the power of nature in the poem.
Analysing 'Death of a Naturalist'
I can analyse how Heaney presents the power of nature in the poem.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- Throughout the poem, Heaney uses multi-sensory descriptions to create vivid imagery.
- Heaney creates a grotesque description of the flax-dam, perhaps to foreshadow its capability to be threatening.
- Heaney uses onomatopoeia in the poem to convey the speaker's enthusiasm for, and then later fear of, nature.
- Heaney presents the power of nature by portraying the frogs as an army through the use of a semantic field.
- Heaney perhaps aimed to show man's insignificance vs nature and discourage us from interfering in natural processes.
Common misconception
When analysing this poem, students might not use terminology as well as they could.
Heaney uses a lot of onomatopoeia in his descriptions within this poem, as well as semantic fields and figurative language.
Keywords
Imagery - the use of words or figurative language to create vivid pictures
Vulgar - rude, offensive or indecent
Multi-sensory - when something appeals to more than one sense at the same time
Equipment
A copy of the Eduqas poetry anthology is required for this lesson.
Content guidance
- Depiction or discussion of sensitive content
- Depiction or discussion of upsetting content
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).
Video
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