B2 Arts & Culture
The Antidote—Classic Poetry for Modern Life
A Reading of ‘When I Heard the Learn’d
Astronomer’ by Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
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 the
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.
By CHRISTOPHER NIELD
Recently, I saw the stars as if for
the first time. I was standing in
the middle of the north Yorkshire
moors, where—unobstructed by
pollution and the glare of streetlevel lighting—those distant fires
of unknown worlds were piercingly,
almost shockingly, bright.
Armed with a star guide torn from
the back of a newspaper, I spent an
hour patiently identifying each constellation. Soon I could point at Ursa
Minor, Pegasus, Cassiopeia’s Chair,
and Gemini. I could pick out Venus
and Mars, even Saturn. The night
sky, which had always seemed like
a spread of random dots, suddenly
snapped into sense and wonder.
So I’m in two minds about Whitman’s poem, in which he contrasts
the “learn’d astronomer” and the
common man, hands in pockets,
who despite his ignorance, can look
up at the stars in reverence. I can
appreciate the distinction Whitman
draws between dusty, book-bound
learning and personal feeling, yet
I can’t help but feel the two are not
quite so opposed.
The poem opens with a powerful
rhetorical riff on the word “when.”
The accumulation of clauses creates
a mood of anticipation verging on
impatience. Even as we hear about
the “learn’d astronomer” and his
“charts” we are itching to know how
the speaker responded. Did he interrupt? Did he put his hands over his
ears? Or did he merely fall asleep?
Itemizing the “proofs and the
figures” and the “charts and the
diagrams,” Whitman evokes an
academic voice untroubled by any
vulgar trace of excitement. We’ve
all been there, sitting through an
interminable lecture, head nodding,
desperate for the ordeal to end.
Even while the astronomer bathes
in the audience’s acclaim, Whitman
feels “tired and sick” and glides out.
He is noiseless and invisible—to the
world’s eye an irrelevance.
His disgust with the whole business of adding, dividing, and mea-
March 18 – 24, 2010
The Epoch Times
suring the universe recalls Wordsworth’s creed that “We murder to
dissect.” Whitman and Wordsworth,
on the crest of the Industrial Revolution, stand appalled at the way
reason and science cut things up,
separating us from the sense of oneness with nature that should be our
birthright.
Wandering off by himself, Whitman is the archetypal Romantic
quester, the maverick who is not
content to merely sit and hear about
life second-hand and acclaim those
in authority.
The contrast of the “lecture-room”
and the “mystical moist night-air”
could not be more profound. The
word “moist” is a brilliant touch;
we can almost feel this cool breeze
blowing against our cheek, bringing
us refreshment and peace.
Looking up to the sky “from time
to time,” Whitman’s manner is wonderfully casual and calm. Nature is
part of his being and breath—always
there to be treasured. Significantly,
the concluding word “stars” states
the subject of the poem. The single
syllable conveys the simple reality
we can grasp with our senses, as
speech disappears into silence.
liza voronin/the epoch times
Of course, Whitman’s poem is not
merely about astronomy: it is about
the tension between conceptual abstraction and concrete experience,
which exists in any discipline. Literature, for example, is not a selfenclosed universe of written signs.
Every poem we read is either reborn
in the light of our own memories
and dreams, or dies as a dreary historical curiosity.
Intellectual endeavor and everyday life can be combined—with
effort, thought, and a little imagination. We can use a star guide to
navigate the sky. We can teach ourselves to identify iambic pentameter,
while responding to the emotional
depths of a Shakespearean sonnet.
We can even sit in a lecture room,
scribbling notes, while not sacrificing our own vision of the truth. It
is up to us make the best of both
worlds, unifying rational precision
with awe.
Walter Whitman (1819–1892)
was an American poet, essayist, and
journalist.
Christopher Nield is a poet living
in London.
Top Shelf: ‘Thimble Summer’
A girl and her
magical summer
By SHARON KILARSKI
Epoch Times Staff
If Elizabeth Enright had been an
actress instead of a writer/illustrator, she would have been hailed
as a chameleon. Moving from her
series the Melendy Quartet to her
‘39 Newberry
Award winner, “Thimble Summer”
makes this
clear.
Enr ig ht ’s
writing in
the the Melendy series
matches the
tone of the
children who
meet (or contrive) a happy
set of circumstances; it is
witty and full
of fun.
“ T himble
Summer”
reads
entirely
dif- yearling
ferently. The
prose is still sprinkled with lots of
dialogue, but the characters aren’t
particularly clever or entertaining.
They are down-to-earth and so is
the writer’s style.
The rhythm and tone match the
setting in rural Wisconsin. The
book feels entirely natural and the
adventures simple. Nine-and-a-halfyear-old Garnet is not a personality
(as the Melendy children are) but,
plainly put, someone through whom
we experience. Garnet’s experiences
become the reader’s.
We experience one summer of remarkable yet utterly ordinary events,
starting with the discovery of a silver thimble. This discovery seems
to precipitate the end of a heartwrenching drought and ushers in
the safety of her father’s money.
In addition to good luck, the thimble brings with it a series of adven-
tures. She and her best friend get
trapped in the town library; the
family takes in a strange boy who
becomes a new brother to her; she
goes on a bus trip and buys presents
for her family—all by herself—and
helps a truck driver catch his load of
escaped chickens. The events end as
all rural adventures must, with the
county fair.
The acknowledgment of all of
these adventures leads Garnet to
an awareness of the happiness of
being alive:
“But now the
happiness
was growing out of all
bounds. Garnet felt that
pretty soon
she might
burst with it,
or begin to
fly, or that her
two pigtails
would stand
straight up on
end and sing
like nightingales.”
The lesson
that Enright
teaches, it
seems, does
parallel her
Melendy tales:
happiness comes from being open
to experience, so that even something as simple as a thimble can
launch a magical journey.
Elizabeth Enright was
born in Oak Park, Illinois,
but spent most of her life
around New York City.
She planned to illustrate,
following her mother’s path,
and so studied art in Paris.
When her first book was
published in 1937, however,
her career path changed and
she became better known
for her writing (winning two
Newberry Medals, among
others) than for her art.