John DePreker 10/25/16

10/25/16

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman

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.

     In todays class we went over the 10 Characteristics of American Romanticism. We  then applied them to the poem above. Period 8 had done better then period 6 in finding all 10 characteristics in the poem rather then their findings of 9. After reading through that Mr. Rivers introduced us to a scene from a movie. What occurs in this scene starts of as boys sitting during class when the teacher (world famous actor Robin Williams) calls on a student to read an excerpt from the book they were reading. He then tells the students to rip the introduction because, of his own personal thoughts of the creator. Now how strange is that! Teachers would never tell students to conduct this behavior. At first the students a reluctant but when one follows along the rest do as so.  Mr. Rivers then put a question that read as followed.
     .

How does the film show ONE of our elements of Romanticism?

My response to the question was that the scene to me relates to #3 (Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seek unspoiled nature)

I believe that this element of romanticism is shown in this film because, they are ripping pages out of the notebook which is basically unspoiled nature. To me this  just seems ridiculous that they can do that. It also shuns our civilization of treating our books with respect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpeLSMKNFO4