Analysis: When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Walt Whitman
1. Bio:
Walt Whitman practically taught himself to read through the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible during his time as a printer’s apprentice in New York City. After a printing district fire in 1836, Whitman became a teacher, and then a journalist. In 1855, he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, sending a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous transcendentalist. In 1865, the updated edition included Emerson’s letter of praise.
Whitman’s brother was wounded in the Civil War, and the poet was overcome by the sheer mass of suffering caused by the fighting. He lived off the salaries of a clerk and the assistance of worldwide supporters in order to care for the wounded in Washington, D.C. In 1873, visiting his dying mother in Camden, NJ, he suffered a debilitating stroke which forced him to stay there with his brother. The income from the 1882 version of Leaves of Grass finally allowed Whitman to purchase his own home. He worked on revisions to his primary work and prepared the 1891 volume of poems and prose Goodbye, My Fancy until his death on March 26, 1892.
2. Figurative Language:
One of the most striking elements in Whitman’s work is figurative language, which is evident in When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer. The poet makes good use of extended metaphor in the first stanza, substituting the astronomer for all those who seek to hide nature’s beauty behind science and mathematics, with a minor reference to the ability of such people to sway others into their beliefs when writing the lecturer spoke to “much applause”. The speaker in the poem is also a representation, one of those who refuse to let figures and measurements cloud their views at that which cannot be explained or quantified, and the stars image nature’s inscrutability and obscurity.
3. Diction:
A useful element in understanding this poem is Whitman’s diction. The sharp-sounding jargon of the first stanza is
Walt Whitman
1. Bio:
Walt Whitman practically taught himself to read through the works of Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible during his time as a printer’s apprentice in New York City. After a printing district fire in 1836, Whitman became a teacher, and then a journalist. In 1855, he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, sending a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous transcendentalist. In 1865, the updated edition included Emerson’s letter of praise.
Whitman’s brother was wounded in the Civil War, and the poet was overcome by the sheer mass of suffering caused by the fighting. He lived off the salaries of a clerk and the assistance of worldwide supporters in order to care for the wounded in Washington, D.C. In 1873, visiting his dying mother in Camden, NJ, he suffered a debilitating stroke which forced him to stay there with his brother. The income from the 1882 version of Leaves of Grass finally allowed Whitman to purchase his own home. He worked on revisions to his primary work and prepared the 1891 volume of poems and prose Goodbye, My Fancy until his death on March 26, 1892.
2. Figurative Language:
One of the most striking elements in Whitman’s work is figurative language, which is evident in When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer. The poet makes good use of extended metaphor in the first stanza, substituting the astronomer for all those who seek to hide nature’s beauty behind science and mathematics, with a minor reference to the ability of such people to sway others into their beliefs when writing the lecturer spoke to “much applause”. The speaker in the poem is also a representation, one of those who refuse to let figures and measurements cloud their views at that which cannot be explained or quantified, and the stars image nature’s inscrutability and obscurity.
3. Diction:
A useful element in understanding this poem is Whitman’s diction. The sharp-sounding jargon of the first stanza is