Textuality » 4A Interacting
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
The poem When I heard The Learn’d Astronomer bears the same title of its first line so that the reader understands that it is part of 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 emotions and reaction while listening to a university lecture about astronomy. At that time there was an expert “the learned astronomer” discussing about the universe and he resorted to difficult figures, geometrical charts and the like. The speaking voice listened but he was not involved, very differently from the audience, who expressed appreciation with “much applause”.
The poet does not seem able to explain why, without any apparent reason, he mechanically stood up and left the lecture-room, tired and sick. When outside the night seemed almost mystical moist to him and he could look at the stars in the sky in perfect silence.
A connotative analysis of the poem shows the poet’s preference for an anaphoric structure which 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 gradual boredom of the speaking voice whose head is full with ‘’proofs, figures, columns, charts and diagrams’’. Also he is asked to continuously make calculation: ‘’ to add, divide, and measure’’ in a typical scientific approach to the study of universe. All the poet’s word choices in the first part rely on long vowel sounds to create an atmosphere of distance, the distance the speaker feels from the lecture. Indeed he ‘’heard’’ and ‘’was shown’’ all the lecture data; the use of perception verbs and the passive voice together with the considerable frequency of infinite verbs add to somebody who just set and heard. He did not act, neither did not interact with the lecture. To tell the truth he did not at all, feel part of the most applauding the lecture but he felt totally different (‘’I sitting heard’’ - ‘’he lectured’’) estranged from that context. Line length underlines the such bore attitude and paves the way for the next section, when the speaking voice felt free living the lecture-room and outside ‘’by myself’’ that is alone he takes distances from that room. In opposition to the applause he enjoyed ‘’the perfect silence of the stars and 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. His is a very different approach from the learned astrono