When I heard the learn’d astronomer  

                                                                                                  Walt Whitman

TITLE: Whitman tells the reader about a personal experience. He will describe a working astronomer, maybe his methods as well. He will also explain his reaction to astronomer’s conclusions.

STRUCTURE:  The poem is composed by a single ten-lines stanza, that can be divided into two sequences, each of which have a specific function.

·         Lines 1-6: composed by four subordinates expressing narrator’s situationà Where he is, who is he with, what is he doing.

·         Lines 7-10: consisting in a main clause followed by a subordinate expressing narrator’s reactions to the situationà what does the lecture cause in him.

·          

DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS: Narrator remembers when he was in a lecture room, listening a lecture from an astronomer. Students were provided with countless diagrams, charts and proofs, but he became suddenly and unaware tired, wandering on his own stream of thought, looking at the stars from time to time.

CONNOTATIVE ANALYSIS/MESSAGE: Narrator wants the reader to get aware that mere numbers, charts and measurements are not enough to explain the deepest meaning of the observed phenomenon. So, in a romantic point of view, he suggests human senses as the best instrument to investigate human, rather than telescopes, lens and microscopes. So, poetry is superior to science in describing natural phenomenons.

READER: We are invited to revaluate senses as effective instruments of knowledge, and to reconsider Science’s role. This is coherent to the idealistic/positivistic point of view of Whitman, which trusts into human possibilities.