When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

by Walt Whitman · 1865 · 1分で読めます · 8行

要点

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman is a poem about a speaker who leaves an astronomy lecture to experience the night sky alone. At first, the speaker faces proofs and figures arranged in columns, then charts and diagrams used for calculation and measurement. The astronomer lectures to an audience that responds with applause, but the speaker unexpectedly feels tired and sick. Rather than explain this discomfort, the poem follows the speaker rising and quietly leaving the room. Outside, the speaker wanders alone through moist night air and occasionally looks up at the stars. The movement from the lecture-room to silent observation contrasts organized knowledge with a personal encounter, leaving the speaker’s response to the sky unspoken.

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.

行ごとの意味の解説

1行目から4行目: The speaker listens to an astronomer presenting mathematical evidence and visual explanations. Columns of figures, charts, and diagrams make the stars a subject for calculation. The repeated opening word “When” builds a sequence of impressions, while the audience’s applause establishes that the lecture is well received by others.

5行目から6行目: The speaker suddenly feels tired and sick without knowing why. This unexplained physical response interrupts the orderly presentation of knowledge. Rising and moving quietly out, the speaker leaves the applauding audience behind and wanders alone, shifting the poem from public instruction to private experience.

7行目から8行目: Outside, the moist air gives the night a physical presence, while “mystical” suggests a sense of mystery beyond measurement. The speaker looks upward at intervals rather than studying continuously. The final silence contrasts with the lecture and applause, allowing the encounter with the stars to remain unexplained.

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考えを深める三つの問い

How does the repeated word “When” shape the opening description of the lecture?
What contrasts does the poem create between the lecture room and the night outside?
How does the speaker’s unexplained discomfort affect your understanding of the final silence?

3か月間無料でご利用いただけます

200,000+の古典を、すべての形式で無料から楽しめます。

電子書籍と15分要約。大活字版を含め、どの本も原価で印刷できます。

無料で始めます毎年更新されます・いつでも解約できます

次の詩The Road Not TakenFrost · 1分で読めます