COMPARE HOW SEAMUS HEANEY PUTS ACROSS THE GROWING UP EXPERIENCE IN “DEATH OF A NATURALIST” WITH HOW GROWING UP IS DESCRIBED IN ANOTHER 3 POEMS. YOU SHOULD CHOOSE AT LEAST ONE POEM BY GILLIAN CLARKE AND ONE FROM THE PRE-1914 COLLECTION IN YOUR ANSWER.

GCSE: English Literature

This is only a preview of the full essay

Preview:

Besides “Death of a Naturalist”, the poems I have chosen to write about are “Blackberry Picking” (also by Seamus Heaney), “Catrin” (by Gillian Clarke) and “The Song of the Old Mother” (from the pre-1914 collection). The main focus of the two Heaney poems is the growing up experience but it is also touched on in the other two poems.

The most obvious comparisons lie in the two Heaney poems, which look at Heaney’s own experiences as a boy growing up in rural Ireland. Both “Blackberry Picking” and “Death of a Naturalist” seem to be set at a time when Heaney was very young (seven or eight years old, or even younger) and both use Nature as a tool in his learning/growing up experience. Both poems are structured, so that the first, rather longer section describes a period of innocent enjoyment and the second section communicates harsh experience and the consequent growing up effect on the young boy.

In “Catrin” and “The Song …” the speaker is not the child but the mother, which perhaps creates something of a distance between us and the child’s perspective. Catrin seems to be a bit older than the child Heaney judging from the way she is more defiant, wanting to explore and experience the world (she wants to stay out and skate in the dark). The Old Mother’s children seem to be older teenagers too, judging from their interests and concerns.
...

*Very simple registration required first