A Self-Taught Man

Walt Whitman is a celebrated poet from the 1800’s, who is known for his writings on nature and his free verse style. He is from humble backgrounds, and “while most other major writers of his time received highly structured classical educations at private institutions, Whitman forged his own rough and informal curriculum of literature, theater, history, geography, music, religion, and archaeology”(Folsom & Kenneth).As a self-taught man, he expresses a dislike for traditional teaching or exploring. This is prominent in his poem,”When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”; he implements structuring, word choice, and alliteration to reverberate what he is hearing as a way of expressing his transcendental views to the audience about the corruption of the individual's ability to think and explore from organized education.

Whitman writes this particular poem in three separate parts; first is the line 1 through 4. These lines are all together because of the use of “When” as the first word of each line. This repetition of the word makes the audience really feel as if they are listening to the ...