The Beauty of Walt Whitmans When I Heard the Learnd...

The Beauty of Walt Whitmans When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer My father is an amateur astronomer. It is his passion, after he comes home from work at the office, to wait outside in the fields surrounding our house with his 10 LX200 F6.3 telescope until all hours of the morning, waiting for the perfect shot of galaxies like NGC 7479 or M16. The next evening at dinner, despite being awake for over thirty hours, he speaks non-stop about how he finally got the perfect shot after five hours of painstaking positioning, how the galaxy, the nebula, the distant moon or dying star existed, or how it was turning back into scattered atoms leaving only a purplish ring of dust to prove it was ever there. A few weeks ago, an article in the†¦show more content†¦Instead of asking How does it work? as is everyone else, he begins to ask What do we gain by knowing? And herein lies the beginning of the investigation Whitman undertakes through his poetry. The first four lines describe the experience the speaker had while in the lecture room. They don’t directly give away his feelings regarding what is going on around him; he leaves the reader to detect the attitude on his/her own. The first half could practically be construed as one long first line, since all four serve the same general purpose—that is, to subtly set the beginning tone while creating an adequate contrast with the last four lines of the poem. They seem to focus mainly on providing an accurate picture of the situation around the speaker, and are structurally more complex, providing a more straightforward description than the last four lines. Each line becomes progressively longer than the next, and the words Whitman chooses are rather flat and all quite literal in their meanings. This first half seems to be a forthright narrative describing his experience in the lecture hall. But delicate hints in the text itself insinuate his attitude toward the lectu re and audience. The most conspicuous trend is Whitman’s application of repetition. The repetition of the beginning word when creates a monotonous, listing style also employed in the next three lines illustrating stylistically andShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Mrs. Dalloway1298 Words   |  6 PagesWalt Whitman’s poem When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer shows a moment which captures the beauty of self-reliance and non-conformity. In the poem, the speaker listens to a lecturer who speaks about astronomy through calculations and measurements. Being sick and tired of the lecture, the speaker wanders off outside to see the stars for himself and becomes struck in awe of the physical beauty of the stars. He also regains peace within himself after finding a new outlet for understanding. This ideaRead MoreNature Vs Society : Society Vs. Society728 Words   |  3 Pagesboundaries created and truly be theirself in a free experience, which causes a person to live a life with their own w ill. Within the poems of Walt Whitman he discusses the significance between society vs nature. In the poem When I heard the Learnd Astronomer the poem approaches the idea of nature vs society in a specific manner. In the poem when the poet says â€Å"I wandered off by myself,† the poet is relating again to the idea of nature. In this he is describing that nature is not something that is confined