An appreciation of Death of a Naturalist

?Death of a naturalist? is a poem about growing up and loss of innocence. The poem is organised into two sections, which follows the boy through childhood. The boy becomes a reflective Adult, from an unquestioning boy. It seems Seamus Heaney is concerned with the progression from innocence to experience. This is shown in the first paragraph when he talks like a child: ?Miss Walls would tell us how.? This shows the fact that the …

…at he is now beginning to experience. The conclusion I have of this poem is that it re-creates the confrontation with the fact that life is not what it seems. From a place where the boy was care free, to an ambiguous world. Heaney succeeded in creating a good poem by building up a totally convincing account of a childhood experience that deals with the excitement, pain and confusion of growing up in this world.