My thoughts on the reading.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer: I have to say that I am grateful for the setup of the book we are reading. I love that it asks questions to focus my understanding. When I read a poem, I don't know what to think about! I go back and figure out what the heck I just read, but other than that I don't know where to begin. I found the questions helpful, and the one I liked the most was #2: asking What is the effect of starting the first four lines with the same word? How does it correspond to the lecture related in those lines?
I think that starting out the poem with the narrator describing all of the things the lecturer said, beginning every line with "when" it creates an overwhelming feeling, which is how the narrator felt about everything he was meant to be learning. He felt "tired and sick" and had to leave. He goes outside and stares at the stars in "perfect silence" and the end of the poem seems to say that sometimes you have to experience things for yourself in order to appreciate them. The narrator learned more from looking at the stars by himself than he did in the lecture from a learn'd astronomer.

I feel that because I am in the drama group I should also say something about the play we've read. This isn't my first time reading "Oedipus Rex," I've read it before and I love this Greek tragedy. The irony in that by trying to avoid the prophecy and sending his son away, the King has in fact sealed their fate. I don't like, however, the psychoanalytic theory named from this play "The Oedipus Complex." I reject Freud's idea wholeheartedly. I don't believe that there is an innate sexual desire in children for their opposite-gendered parents. YUCK! Still, a compelling story with a tragic ending.