Walk Whitman's 'When I Heard The Learn' D Astronomer

The presentation Aid the speaker chose to use is a projector hooked up to a computer using a PowerPoint presentation, the use of these really brought out the message is trying to get across. We have some people that absorb information by listening others are visual learners so he covered both bases.

Briefly summarize the content of the lecture and the highlights of the Q&A session (if any)

symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide

“The world is the true classroom. The most rewarding and important type of learning is through experience, seeing something with our own eyes.” According to Walt Whitman’s poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” he portrays the theme that it is better to learn by experiencing things on your own. Whitman illustrates “When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room. How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick” (lines 4-5). The author implies how he is not understanding the material taught in class. He is lost how everyone else is getting the subject but him. Students or anyone trying to learn something new does not always work when they are in class. Just because everyone else might get it does

In Walt Whitman’s poem “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” the title itself brings to mind images of stars and charts. The word “heard” suggests the Poet is listening, and the word “Learn’d” adds to the feeling of intelligence. A reader would expect a poem entitled “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” to be about the stars and the shy, and in this case the reader’s expectations would be disappointed. This poem tells the story of a man sitting in a lecture hall listening to another man that says he is an astronomer.

The heightened use of the verb "wandering," indicates a certain heavenly and unexplained quality to the phenomena of stars and their alignment in the sky. The "perfect silence" and image of the night sky exhibits an air of reverence which is not necessarily evident in the objective approach of the "learn'd astronomer" and his applauding audience. The literary devices and wording

Through the poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” Whitman demonstrates the importance of returning to nature as a source of inspiration and wisdom by juxtaposing the restrictive scientific teachings against liberating personal imagination through nature. This difference is most apparent in the first few lines of the poem. Whitman begins his poem by describing a scene in which he is sitting in a classroom being taught by an astronomer, “When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them” (Whitman 3). He uses repetition by starting out each line with “when” causing the reader to sense an uninterest in the speaker. When one pairs this with the continual extension of each line, it becomes apparent of lack of enthusiasm

Name and background of presenter. What do they do for a living? Where do they do it? What is their education and experiences? Why were they asked to present this lecture? (Approximately 350 words page).

The soul is a wonderful thing, as it tells us who we are mentally, while the body signifies who we are physically. Both may seem entirely different, but when the body is the soul, it can emphasize people’s individuality. This is what Whitman describes in his poem I Sing the Body Electric. He compares and contrasts both men and women equally and even treats slaves in a positive way as well. Whitman’s theme portrayed in I Sing the Body Electric is that the body is perfect in every way and in every person.

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 lecture and audience.

poem is not merely a static, decorative creation, but that it is an act of communication between the poet and

“Song of Myself” is all about the idea of what being an American is like. It is clear that the subject for his poem is himself. However, Walt Whitman did not intend to make his poem all about himself. Instead he wanted it to be universal because everyone who is an American acknowledged that it is a poem about him or her as well. Whitman wanted a democratic society where all are equal.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in

Whitman's Poem "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," is not, at first glance, an obvious love poem. Most readers would probably consider this a tragic poem about death and love lost. In spite of the fact that the poem is about intrinsically sorrowful events, or perhaps because of it, Whitman is able to capture a very unique and poignant portrayal of love. There are three major perspectives to examine how Whitman develops the theme of love in Out of the Cradle, and by examining each reoccurring theme in the poem separately, we can come to a more complete understanding of how they work together to communicate Whitman's message about love.