When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

I know we’ve done this one in class already so I feel it is kinda cheating if I identify the same theme so I’m going to day that the poets intent is to question the running definition of Learn’d.

What does it mean to be educated?
That you can take a planetary system and convert it into binary code for anaylsis?
Or you can list the major cities of the world from 1456 to the current era?
Or that you can take a brilliant piece of poetry and break it down to every syllable?

The man in this poem would be of the school that says learning is being able to experience the subject in a meaningful manor. Despite being able to see the charts, or the math, or the lecture, he’d rather see the stars because that’s what he loves, not the science.

And there you go. Hope you enjoyed yourself