TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

The poem When I Heard Learn'd Astronomer bears
the same title of its fist line, so that the reader understands that it is a
part o a collection.

The poem is in free verse and some lines are longer.
Therefore it will be interesting to find out a possible reason for that. In
addition, the last four lines show a regular pattern in length.

The poem is the record of a memory: the speaking voice
expresses his emoticon and reaction while listening to university lecture about
astronomy. At that time there was an expert "the learn'd astronomer" discussing
about the universe and he resorted to difficult figures, geometrical charts and
the like. The speaking voice listened but he wasn't involved very differently
from the audience who expressed appreciation with "much applause".

The poet doesn't seem able to explain why, without any
apparent reason, he mechanically stud up and left the lecture-room, tired and
sick. When outside the night seemed almost mystical to him and he could looked
at the stars in the sky in perfect silence.

A connotative analysis 
of the poem shows the poet's preference for the anaphoric structure
witch privileges the first section of the poem where all lines start with an
interrogative pronoun "when" and significantly grow longer to convey the sense
of a gradual boredom of the speaking voice whose head is full with "proof,
figures, columns, charts and diagrams". Also, he is asked to continuously make
calculation "to add, divided, measure" in a typical scientific approach to the
study of the universe.

All poet's word choice in the first part relies on,
long vowel sounds, to create an atmosphere of distance, the distance the speaker
feel from the lecture. Indeed he "heard" and "was shown" all the lecture data;
the use o perception verbs and the passive voice together with the considerable
frequency of infinite verbs add to somebody who just set and heard. He didn't
act, neither did he interact with the lecture. To tell the truth, he did not at
all feel part of the mass applauding the lecturer but he felt totally different
("I sitting heard-he lecture"), a strange from the contest. Line length underline
such bored attitude and paves the way for the next section when the speaking
voice felt free leaving the lecture-room and outside "by myself", that is alone,
he takes distance from the room. In opposition to the applause he enjoys "the
perfect silence of the stars" and the "mystical moist of the night".  In both cases the alliteration of m and s adds
to what he considers the suitable way to study the universe with its stars. It is
a very different approach from the learned astronomer.