Lecture 2.3.2 – Form and Content
Lecture Overview
Teacher’s shows a revised structure which aids the dramatic reading - favouring 10 beat lines. Note the significance of the number ten in our everyday lives and activities (10 fingers, ten toes, the decimal system, ten people on a jury, ten commandments, grading on 100%) When I heard the learn’d astronomer, 10 beats What is the theme of the poem? The wonders of Nature (the stars, the constellations, the planets, etc.) cannot be measured just with charts. They get in the way of what Nature can be for us. We analyze everything so thoroughly with Science (e.g. Astronomy) to the extent it kills appreciation and wonder and our ability to appreciate the beauty in the world. Another possible theme – you can’t appreciate the world in books and indoors. Get outside where Nature resides!
When the proofs, the figures, 6
were ranged in columns before me, 8
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, 10
to add, divide, and measure them, 8
When I sitting heard the astronomer 10
where he lectured with much applause 8
in the lecture-room, 5
How soon unaccountable I became 10
tired and sick, Till rising and gliding 10
out I wander’d off by myself, 8
In the mystical moist night-air, 8
and from time to time, 5
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars 10