Death of a Naturalist – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Death of a Naturalist’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The title poem in Heaney’s debut poetry collection Death of a Naturalist, published in 1966, ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is a deceptively simple poem about how the fascination and curiosity we feel in early childhood gives way to fear and disgust when we reach adolescence. You can read ‘Death of a Naturalist’ here before proceeding to our analysis of the poem below.

A Short Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Digging’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Digging’ appeared in Seamus Heaney’s first collection, Death of a Naturalist, in 1966. Like a number of the sonnets by Tony Harrison – who was born two years before Heaney – ‘Digging’ is about a poet-son’s relationship with his father and the sense that the working-class son, by choosing the vocation of the poet (but then who chooses it?