Whitman

Whitman


This is a link for any reader who is frustrated or bored with all of this literary theory. Sometimes we get so deep into theory that we forget what we're theorizing about. If you're feeling like this, and Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, and Bakhtin simply are not impressing you, then let's defer to Uncle Walt, who probably would have felt the same way....



When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.

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.

1865 1865


Source

See the Opening Remarks

Return to Individual Theorists