Textuality » 4A Interacting
GLicata - A Useful Model fo Reflect on Textual Analysis: When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer
by - (2011-09-27)
Up to 4 A - A Useful Model fo Reflect on Textual Analysis
Considering the title the use of ‘'when'' and of simple past indicate the writer wants to talk about a memory. The poem deals with a student who is hearing a lecture of astronomy. In the first 4 lines you can understand the bore and the distance of the writer from the learn'd astronomer. The contract form increases the sense of different and distant language of the astronomer. The writer is passive in front of scientific data and the verbs of perception ''to be shown'' and ''to hear'' underline it so much that in the end of the lecture he didn't applause. The poem is in free verse.The rhythm is broken when the writer begins to talk about his feelings. Each line finish with a comma indeed the writer wants to take a break to reflect on what you have just read. At the beginning he use hard sounds and they gives regularity and monotony. The use of ‘'m'' indicates a lament and ‘'time to time'' the sense of liberation. At the end the writer expresses he has more interest in the vision of concrete things than the abstracts words of an astronomer, like each student prefers the application of a concept to its study. So when lecture finished, he looked at the sky and he is raptured by the perfection of stars.