When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary movement best describes "When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer"?

   • Realism
   • Naturalism
   • Correct answer: Romanticism
   • Modernism

   Correct. The poem prefers personal feeling and direct experience of nature to the astronomer's proofs and figures, a core Romantic value that Whitman shared with the Transcendentalists.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Where is the speaker when the poem begins?

   • In a classroom, teaching students about stars
   • In a library, reading a book on astronomy
   • At an observatory, looking through a telescope
   • Correct answer: In a lecture-room, listening to an astronomer

   Line four places him in a lecture hall: "When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room." He is a listener in the audience, not a teacher or stargazer.

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3. 3

   Question 3. How does the rest of the audience respond to the astronomer?

   • They sit in bored silence
   • Correct answer: They applaud him a great deal
   • They grow restless and drift out
   • They argue with his figures

   The astronomer "lectured with much applause in the lecture-room." The crowd approves of him, which makes the speaker's quiet exit an act of going his own way.

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4. 4

   Question 4. In the line "When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me," what does ranged mean?

   • Correct answer: Set out in orderly rows
   • Wandered over a wide area
   • Varied between two limits
   • Scattered in no fixed order

   Here ranged means arranged or lined up: the proofs and figures are set out neatly in columns. The other choices are different senses of range (to roam, to vary) or its opposite (scattered).

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5. 5

   Question 5. How does the speaker feel as the lecture goes on?

   • Angry that the figures are wrong
   • Correct answer: Tired and sick for no clear reason
   • Proud to understand every chart
   • Thrilled and eager to hear even more

   Line five reads "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick." He never says the figures are wrong; he simply grows weary of them, and cannot account for why.

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6. 6

   Question 6. In the line "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick," what does unaccountable mean?

   • Correct answer: In a way he could not explain
   • Not answerable to anyone else
   • Too many to count or measure
   • For reasons he plainly knew

   Unaccountable here means without an explanation: the speaker becomes tired and sick in a way he cannot account for. It is not the sense of 'not responsible to anyone,' and it does not mean 'countless.'

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does the speaker do after he rises from his seat?

   • He waits outside to speak with the astronomer
   • He walks home with a crowd of other listeners
   • He climbs to a rooftop to chart the stars
   • Correct answer: He wanders off by himself into the night air

   "Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself," he goes out alone into the "mystical moist night-air," leaving the crowd behind with no plan to measure anything.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How many lines long is the poem?

   • Twelve
   • Six
   • Correct answer: Eight
   • Ten

   The poem has eight lines: four that begin with 'When,' then four that carry the speaker out of the room and under the stars.

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9. 9

   Question 9. How does the speaker look at the stars in the final line?

   • With a star chart held up to the sky
   • Correct answer: In perfect silence, from time to time
   • While naming each one aloud
   • Through a borrowed telescope

   The poem ends with the speaker who, "from time to time," "Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars." No instruments, no charts and no words: just looking.

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10. 10

    Question 10. The first four lines all begin with the word 'When.' What is this kind of repetition called?

    • Correct answer: Anaphora
    • Enjambment
    • Personification
    • Onomatopoeia

    Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of lines. The four 'When' lines pile up like the lecture's proofs and figures, building a sense of weight and monotony before the speaker escapes.

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11. 11

    Question 11. Which best describes the poem's form?

    • A ballad of rhymed four-line stanzas
    • Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
    • Correct answer: Free verse with no set rhyme or meter
    • A sonnet in rhymed iambic pentameter

    The eight lines do not rhyme and have no regular meter; their lengths vary widely. This free verse, Whitman's trademark, suits a poem about breaking away from rigid columns and measurements.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does the speaker do 'from time to time' outside?

    • Claps for the lecturer
    • Checks the astronomer's sums
    • Glances back at the hall
    • Correct answer: Looks up at the stars

    "From time to time" he "Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars," the last line of the poem.

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13. 13

    Question 13. How is the poem built as a sentence?

    • As a question in four lines answered in the last four
    • As two sentences, one for the hall and one for the sky
    • As eight short sentences, each ending at a line break
    • Correct answer: As one sentence that holds its main clause until line five

    The whole poem is a single sentence with one period at the end. Four 'When' clauses keep the reader waiting, and the main clause arrives only in line five: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick." Grammar that waits like this is called a periodic sentence.

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14. 14

    Question 14. How do the first four lines change in length, and what does that suggest?

    • They change at random, showing the speaker's confusion
    • Correct answer: They grow longer, as the lecture seems to drag on
    • They grow shorter, as the speaker's interest fades away
    • They stay equal, like the steady columns of figures

    Line one is short; line four, "When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room," is the longest in the poem. The swelling lines make the lecture feel longer and heavier, until the speaker breaks away.

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15. 15

    Question 15. What does the phrase 'mystical moist night-air' add to the poem?

    • A hint that the speaker is drifting into sleep
    • A scientific measure of the evening's humidity
    • Correct answer: A sense of nature felt with the body and spirit
    • A warning that the night air is unsafe to breathe

    'Mystical' gives the night a spiritual, mysterious quality that charts cannot capture, and 'moist' makes it something the speaker can feel on his skin. The alliteration of the m sounds slows the line into calm after the crowded lecture.

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16. 16

    Question 16. What contrast do the last lines draw against the lecture-room?

    • Correct answer: Crowd and applause give way to perfect silence
    • A lone listener gives way to a cheering crowd
    • Bright lamps give way to a dark, starless sky
    • A cold hall gives way to the warm summer sun

    Indoors there is a crowd and "much applause"; outdoors the speaker is "by myself" and looks up "in perfect silence at the stars." Noise and company give way to silence and solitude.

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17. 17

    Question 17. Which statement best captures the poem's central idea?

    • Correct answer: Direct wonder at the stars can reach what charts cannot
    • Only trained experts can truly understand the night sky
    • A crowd's applause is the surest sign of real knowledge
    • Science about the stars is false and should be ignored

    The speaker never says the astronomer is wrong; he says the proofs and charts leave him tired and sick. Alone under the stars, in silence, he finds what the lecture could not give him: direct, personal wonder at nature.

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18. 18

    Question 18. Which of these happen in the poem?

    • The speaker is shown charts and diagrams at the lecture.

      Happened

      Line three: "When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them."

    • The speaker asks the astronomer a question about the stars.

      Didn't happen

      The speaker never speaks to the astronomer. He only listens, then leaves.

    • The audience in the lecture-room applauds the astronomer.

      Happened

      The astronomer "lectured with much applause in the lecture-room."

    • The speaker stays in his seat until the lecture is over.

      Didn't happen

      He leaves partway: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick," he says, "Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself."

    • The speaker becomes tired and sick while he listens.

      Happened

      Line five: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick."

    • A friend walks out of the lecture at the speaker's side.

      Didn't happen

      He goes alone: "I wander’d off by myself."

    • The speaker wanders off alone into the night air.

      Happened

      "I wander’d off by myself," he says, "In the mystical moist night-air."

    • The speaker names the constellations he sees overhead.

      Didn't happen

      He names nothing. He looks up "in perfect silence at the stars."

    • The speaker looks up at the stars in perfect silence.

      Happened

      The last line: "Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."

    • The speaker describes the night air outside as dry.

      Didn't happen

      The air is the opposite of dry: the poem calls it the "mystical moist night-air."

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