When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” was first published in 1865 as part of his Civil War poetry collection Drum Taps before later appearing in the fourth edition of Leaves of Grass. The poem explores the contrast between the scientific approach of an astronomer to the night sky and the speaker’s more individualized wonder in the face of nature’s mysteries. The poem embodies some of the most distinctive elements of Whitman’s style: the use of free verse, the enduring fascination with nature, and the celebration of individual experience.

Poet Biography

Although now recognized as one of America’s greatest poets, Walt Whitman’s story is one of humble beginnings and repeated failures on the long road to literary recognition. He was born in 1819 in Long Island, New York in the United States. His father was a poorly educated carpenter, and the family was large and poor. The family eventually moved to Brooklyn, but they continued to live in impoverished circumstances. Faced with the necessity of earning his own money, Whitman left school at age 12 to begin working. As an adolescent he worked in the printing trade but soon turned to writing. In his twenties he worked as a journalist and editor for publications such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Crescent. Although he did not have the opportunity for much formal education, Whitman was always an avid reader and tried to develop his own writing style, mostly through trial and error.

Whitman’s literary talents began to awaken more seriously in 1855, when he decided to self-publish a small collection of poems called Leaves of Grass. The collection caught the attention of fellow American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who praised Whitman’s talent, but the edition was otherwise ignored. Whitman brought out second and third editions but without success. Whitman continued with his work as a journalist and editor before taking up work as a government clerk. In 1865 he published a second poetry collection called Drum Taps, inspired by the events he witnessed during the American Civil War between the pro-abolition North and the pro-slavery South.

In 1881, a newly published edition of Leaves of Grass ran into legal trouble with the Society for the Suppression of Vice. The Society’s attempted legal actions against the work’s publication brought Whitman and his work to far greater public prominence, and the new edition began to sell well, giving Whitman a greater degree of financial stability and recognition at last. Whitman died in 1892, at the age of 72, in his house in New Jersey. In 1930, nearly 40 years after his death, Whitman was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

Throughout his life, Whitman believed strongly in the ideals of freedom and democracy and he celebrated the power of individuality in his own verse. His open manner of addressing matters of sexuality in his work sometimes jarred his contemporaries, especially since some of his work contained homoerotic themes. Whitman’s use of free verse – verse without set rhyme or meter – gave him a distinct and less formal style compared to many of his contemporaries. Above all else, Whitman is a great nature poet: in poems such as “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” – the poem of this guide – Whitman celebrates the enduring beauty and mystery of the natural world with respect and awe. His work remains widely studied and acclaimed in American literary culture; he is considered one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century.

Poem Text

Whitman, Walt. “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” 1865. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem opens in a lecture hall, where the speaker is attending a public lecture on astronomy offered by a “learn’d” (Line 1) expert in the field. The speaker describes how the astronomer is able to map and measure the stars in the sky with scientific precision, describing how the information is laid out in “proofs”, “figures”, and “columns” (Line 2) for the audience to view. The astronomer also displays “charts and diagrams” (Line 3) that bring further order to the night sky, involving mathematical calculations “to add, divide, and measure them [the stars]” (Line 3), further bringing the stars under the control of scientists. The lecture is received enthusiastically by the other people present, as they respond to the speech “with much applause” (Line 4) that fills the lecture hall. But the speaker has a different reaction: he complains of feeling “sick and tired” (Line 5) without really understanding why, calling his emotional state “unaccountable” (Line 5). The speaker then decides to leave the lecture hall, giving up the communal atmosphere of the hall in favor of solitude instead: “I wander’d off by myself” (Line 6). Outside, walking in the dark, the speaker describes the night atmosphere around him as “mystical” (Line 7), recounting how he spends his walk occasionally glancing up “in perfect silence” (Line 8) at all the stars in the night sky above him.