Can Images Transform a Poem? When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer: An Example of a Poetry Picturebook

Abstract

This article analyzes When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer, which we consider to be an example of a poetry picturebook, a kind of text belonging to the field of children's literature which is characterized by the interaction between a poetic text and a sequence of illustrations. In this case, visual narrative adds a story to the poem and incorporates some visual poetic structures. Text and pictures become a unit, whose sense is created through the complex interaction of visual and verbal. The result is a new work incorporating a personal interpretation of the original Walt Whitman poem, adapted for child readers.