4B+Abelson

Link to my recording: media type="custom" key="24534722" Analysis:

Walt Whitman used multiple stylistic features in //When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer//. For example, for the lines leading up to "Til rising and gliding..." (Line 9),There was a very angry tone apparent. He made sure to emphasize the disgust of "charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure" (Lines 4-5) that he was trying to express in the first section of the poem. The tone softened, because when Whitman started referring to Nature, the mood of the poem lightened up because Whitman was trying to express his love for the lessons Nature can teach us, such as when Whitman stated, "Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars" (Line 11). Whitman made his love for Nature clear through this quote. in the beginning of the poem, he stated his hatred for the professor in the lecture hall, who was an astronomer. He expressed how he would much rather physically look up at the stars, rather than learn about them from charts and from a teacher. The contrast between these two sections of the poem greatly expressed the theme Whitman was attempting to convey to the reader: that Nature can teach us much more than a teacher, charts, diagrams, and science altogether.