When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

1. This poem is an appropriate choice for students because the poem presents a speaker who, like students, listens to a lecturer. From the first four lines, describe the astronomer's lecture.
   
2. How does the speaker of the poem respond to the lecture? Notice the grammatically ambiguous wording of ll. 3-4. How does the grammar in those places reflect the position and feelings of the speaker?
   
3. Why does the speaker go outside? How does what he encounters outside contrast with the astronomer's lecture? Why does the speaker say "mystical moist night-air"? Why does he look in "perfect silence"?
   
4. What does this poem suggest about the powers of nature? Is the astronomer's lecture a type of "art"? If so, what does this poem suggest about the relationship between art and nature?
   
5. In your textbook there is a clear interpretation of the differences between the first part and the second part of this poem in, for example, the line length (with the numbers of syllables in each line being 1) 9, 14, 18, 23; and 2) 14, 14,13,10) and their respective patterns (e.g. repetition of "When" in the first part, and the iambic pentameter in the last line of the second part) . Think more about the effects of these differences. How do the different patterns here support the ideas about the differences conveyed in the poem between astronomy and nature? (the technique)
6. Keep the general ideas (sense) in mind, find out more about the sound effects of this poem (e.g. its use of assonance, alliteration and open vowels). (the technique)

 (External Links)Whitman, Modern American Poetry, Study Questions, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," Introduction to Literature 98': Poetry III: Art and Nature