Blog #12: Poem #8: Poetry Response to _When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer_ by Walt Whitman

       I felt that this poem, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman, provided a very relatable topic that is revelant to today's society. I felt that the author was trying to convey the importance of learning through experince rather than learning by just being taught in a lecture like setting. It was interesting because the poem was in first person point of view and I could feel the speaker's growing angst and annoyance at the during the lecture being given to him. For the first four lines, the speaker used repetetion and begin each line with the word "When" and then going on to state how the astronomer was explaing what he knew through the use of graphs, formulas, and etc in a classroom setting. It felt as though the speaker rolled his eyes everytime he said "When" because immediately following those lines, the speaker literally got sick and tired, annoyed with the praise and "much applause"this astronomer receieved when the speaker learned absolutely nothing from this astronomer's teaching methods. Once the speaker got sick and left the room to go into the "mystical moist night-air, it seemed that the alliteraton used conveyed that being outside in the night-air had a more profound impact on the speaker than the lecture given to him previously inside. It is ironic that at the end of the poem, the speaker is looking up at the stars peacefully because he had felt highly distraught when an astronmer, who knows everything about stars, proved to be an epically horrible teacher about the stars to others. Instead of listening to the confusing equations and formulas the "Learn'd Astronomer" discussed, the speaker "learn'd" more astronomy by literally looking up at the stars and observing them. He was able to experince them first hand rather than being told confusing information in a setting away from them. This all proves that everyone learns at a different pace in different ways and that it is easier to learn about a concept when you try to discover its wonders yourself rather than being told all the answers and not understanding how you got them in the first place.