Walt Whitman's 'When I Heard The Learn' D Astronomer

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Walt Whitman’s "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" highlights the difference between two types of thinking – wisdom, and knowledge. Wisdom is gained through experience and exploration whereas knowledge is gained from research, reading, and established theories. It is obvious in this poem the speaker is not an academic and prefers to learn by experience. He is bored and disconnected from the astronomer’s words until he gazes upon the stars himself. The astronomer attempts to relay his academic knowledge in his lecture, but the speaker does not connect to the subject matter from such a distance. The two “worlds” in the poem are a structured approach to learning – the astronomer – and experiential learning – the speaker. Looking up at the night
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