Page 1 - Ch-10-When I heard the Learned Astonomer-MM
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SAI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
STD-4 ENGLISH LITERATURE
CHAPTER-10-WHEN I HEARD THE LEARNED ASTROMER
MIND MAP
In the lecture Under the
room night sky
Sees charts, figures and Sees the stars and breathes
diagrams on stars. the moist mystical air.
Feels tired and sick Feels tranquil and relaxed
Lesson Notes
A poet and a teacher, Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"
tells the story of a boy's fascination with the heavens. Toy rocket in hand, the
boy finds himself in a crowded, stuffy lecture hall. At first, he is amazed by the
charts and the figures. Butsoon the poet felt tired and so he escaped from the
lecture room and went outside, where he breathed "the mystical moist night-
air" and "looked up in perfect silence at the stars."
In the poem, Whitman conveys his belief in the limits of using science to
understand nature. Whitman suggests that one needs to experience nature for
true understanding, instead of measuring it.
The poet can feel and understand the processes of nature when he is
experiencing them, but listening to people lecture about them merely makes
him "tired and sick."
Why he wrote this poem?
