Death of a Naturalist- Seamus Heaney
In the poem ‘Death of a Naturalist’ the poet he conveys an adult speaker looking back on his childhood throughout, demonstrating how as a young boy, his perception of the same environment suddenly changed and matured as he grew into a man. This essentially is providing a new way of looking at the bridge between childhood and adulthood, and displaying how over time, people 's interpretation of their surroundings and of society will change and develop due to the fact the innocence of a child’s perception is gradually lost. In this poem, Heaney has presented it in a manner which makes it very sense provoking for the reader through the themes that are present, and due to Heaney’s use of literally devices such as, imagery and his choices of words in order to create effect in this piece.

In the first section of the poem Heaney presents his experiences as a child as he describes the flax-dam through techniques such as imagery and assonance in order to provoke the senses of the reader and identify the innocence of the child in the poem. The line “the flax-dam festered in the heart of the townland” suggests that Heaney is describing the flax-dam as somewhat of a parasite that forms in the town centre which can be implied as the word ‘festered’ is usually associated in order to provoke negative connotations about something. The fact that he notes this ‘festering’ of the flax-dam is very unusual as throughout the poem it seems to be that the child