When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer BY WALT WHITMAN ,Short summary and analysis.

 When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer 

BY WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Short summary and analysis 

* When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" in 1865 in his poetry collection Drum-Taps. In the poem, Whitman conveys his belief in the limits of using science to understand nature. Rather, Whitman suggests, one needs to experience nature for true understanding, instead of measuring it.

* In the poem  the speaker attends an astronomer’s public lecture on the stars. While the audience enjoys the astronomer’s scientific explanations and mathematical equations, the speaker finds them unbearable. 

* Indeed, the speaker believes that there is a power and beauty in nature that cannot be measured or explained. Rather, the poem seems to suggest that one can simply experience nature itself to gain a different—perhaps even deeper—understanding of the world.

* The speaker finds the astronomer’s scientific perspective on the stars intolerable. The speaker lists the astronomer’s scientific methods of “proofs,” “figures,” “charts,” “diagrams,” and many more. 

* The speaker recounts the astronomer’s methods unemotionally and without figurative language, indicating the speaker’s lack of enthusiasm for the astronomer’s lecture.

* Even the enthusiastic “applause” of the audience does not change the speaker’s mind. Indeed, the speaker becomes "unaccountably" "tired and sick." The speaker’s “unaccountable” nature stands in direct contrast and opposition to the astronomer’s attempt to measure and account for everything. That is, there are no charts or diagrams that can explain the speaker’s feelings.

* Consequently, the speaker chooses to turn away from scientific analysis and be immersed in nature instead. The poem suggest a free-spirited nature to the speaker’s actions that contrasts with the rigidness of the astronomer’s lecture.

* Indeed, once the speaker abandons scientific analysis, the speaker gains a type of freedom. This freedom allows the speaker to leave the confines of the lecture-room and go wherever he wishes in body and mind.

* For the speaker, simply being in nature is an almost magical experience and can provide a deeper enlightenment than pure scientific study. The speaker describes his surroundings as “the mystical moist night-air.” The adjective “mystical” is used to describe the magical quality of the night around him.

Themes : 

* The limits of using science to understand nature.

In the poem, Whitman conveys his belief in the limits of using science to understand nature. Rather, Whitman suggests, one needs to experience nature for true understanding, instead of measuring it.

* Isolation : 

man and the natural world are some notable themes of this poem. The poem presents two things; society’s view of “knowledge” and the speaker’s interpretation of learning. The poet shows discontent on the mathematical logic of the scientific process presented by the astronomer in the lecture hall. Although the astronomer explains the real-world data in a catchy way, the poet considers his lecture merely a catalog of facts he is unable to understand. Therefore, he prefers walking out in nature to see the magic. On a deeper level, the poem elaborates how people can appreciate certain things in the presence of nature.