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Death of a Naturalist: a study in innocence.
In Death of a Naturalist, the title poem of the collection, Heaney explores ideas which will be key to these poems – the conflict inherent between innocence and experience and the sense of terror which drives a young man towards …
Heaney: Digging and the search for ‘the good turf’.
The collection Death of a Naturalist opens with the poem Heaney called a ‘strength giver’: Digging. If Personal Helicon summarises the ideas of the collection, it is this poem which asserts Heaney’s decision to honour the authenticity and labour of …
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Churning Day: Heaney. An analysis.
Another of the poems in the collection which considers the aging process as a conflict between innocence and experience, ultimately resulting in an epiphany as the older Heaney recognises the mundanity of something hitherto regarded as bordering on the magical …
On Personal Helicon: Heaney.
Personal Helicon for Michael Longley As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss. One, in …
Exploring Blackberry Picking: Heaney. An essay.
Blackberry Picking is a poem rich in imagery and symbolism -from the macabre linking of the fruit to a ‘plate of eyes’ capable of staring at the young Heaney and intensifying his sense of guilt, to the link between this …
Preparing for Heaney: Death of a Naturalist. OCR A level NEA
Preparing for NEA: Death of a Naturalist, Heaney. This summer I am reading Heaney’s first anthology: Death of a Naturalist, as preparation for the OCR A level NEA close-study-task, which I will be teaching next term. As usual, it …
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#TENC2019: Engaging A Level students
My presentation from the TeamEnglish Conference is on strategies I use at the beginning of the A Level journey. There are more slides here than on the presentation seen at The Jack Hunt School. I hope it is useful. Introducing …
