English Department Portfolio
Sample Close Textual Analysis Essay

Below is a sample essay written by Professor Steve Adams that you might use as a model for your close textual analysis. It is an explication of a short poem by Walt Whitman.

"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.

Sharon Student
English 3564

“Tired and sick” of School:
An Analysis of Whitman’s "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

This poem concerns different ways of knowing: being convinced rationally about something by hearing from the experts as opposed to experiencing it directly, intimately, and intuitively for yourself.

The setting for the first five lines is a lecture hall (H 403, perhaps). The speaker of the poem is listening to a "learn'd astronomer" as he lectures, presumably about astronomy (James E. Miller, Jr., ed., Complete Poetry and Selected Prose by Walt Whitman [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959, p. 196]). The lecture seems rather dry and abstract, though. It focuses on scientific facts and figures all neatly arranged to appeal to human logic and reason. The lecturer offers "proofs," "figures," "charts and diagrams" for his hearers, who are expected to test the data and hypotheses – "to add, divide, and measure them." The lecture is apparently successful because the audience responds "with much applause."

The speaker of the poem, however, responds differently. The poem shifts in the fifth line when he gives his own reaction: for some reason he grows "tired and sick" and must leave the lecture hall. He recovers when he gets outside by himself, where he occasionally looks up at the stars. He does not indicate precisely what has happened (calling the whole incident "unaccountable"), but the implications seem clear. Put off by the rational, scientific approach to the stars, he is restored when he experiences them directly for himself. The setting shifts from the enclosed, probably stuffy classroom with its dry facts and figures to the fresh "mystical moist night-air." Instead of hearing lecturing from the astronomer and applause from the audience, he experiences "perfect silence." Instead of abstract "charts and diagrams," he sees, directly and unmediated, the stars themselves. Whitman implies that this mystical, intuitive, direct way of knowing is superior to the second-hand, rational, intellectualized understanding that the scientist offers.

Whitman uses form and poetic language to reinforce his point. Writing the poem in free verse allows him to tailor the form to the content (instead of superimposing on it a pre-existing stanza pattern and rhyme scheme). For example, in the first half of the poem he keeps increasing the length of the lines. He also keeps repeating words and phrases ("when," "heard the astronomer," "lecture") and multiplying synonyms (proofs and figures, charts and diagrams, "to add, divide, and measure"). As a result, this part of the poem begins to drag and grow repetitious and boring – just as the lecture on astronomy does for the speaker of the poem. The repetition of "r" sounds, too ("heard the learn'd astronomer"), conveys the impression that the lecturer is droning on and on (as professors at UMD never do).
The form and sound of the poem then shift when the speaker leaves the lecture hall. The lines now grow progressively shorter, and instead of droning "r" sounds we get a pleasant, musical assonance and alliteration: crisp, clean long "i" vowels and "m" and "s" consonants ("rising," "gliding" "I," "by myself," "night," "time to time," "silence," "mystical, moist," "stars").

Whitman might be playing with sight as well as sound when he contrasts his two different experiences. In the lecture hall all of the seats would be arranged in orderly rows facing the podium. Also, he indicates that the lecturer is using “charts and diagrams” which feature figures “ranged in columns before me.” This rigid, repetitious order disappears when the speaker of the poem flees the hall. Once outside the orderly classroom, he says that he “wander'd off” by himself; the verb he uses suggests a spontaneous, free, irregular movement that contrasts with the straight lines that oppressed him earlier. (Whitman may have known that “planet” derives from the Greek word meaning “wanderer.”) And the final image of the poem is “the stars.” Whitman conjures up for us a vision of the dark night sky studded with lights that are arranged not in neat rows but irregularly – or in constellations created by the poetic human imagination.

If we have grasped the meaning of his poem, Whitman implies, we should now stop analyzing it, close our books, and go out to look at the stars for ourselves.