Examines the poem by Walt Whitman named a A Noiseless Patient Spider.
This paper looks at the way the poet combines metaphor and metaphysics to convey a sense of meaning and wonderment in his poem. Whitman draws parallels between the mysterious arachnid and the equally nebulous human soul. The paper analyzes the poem for symbolism and analogy.
Whitman inspires healthy self-awareness with his deep observations of the spider and its web. He witnesses in the miraculous creature his own soul and asks us to see our individual reflections therein. One could meditate for hours on the spider metaphor, for this musing is fairly straightforward. However, in only two verses, Walt Whitman evokes a sense of wonder that transcends the language he employs. By carefully crafting his lines to bridge the gap between the concrete subject of the noiseless, patient spider and the abstract soul, Whitman eases the reader into his musings. The first stanza stands alone as a meditation on observation: the poet seems to revel in the simple appreciation of the spider’s wondrous existence. That this creature can create silk from within its body is as stunning as childbirth or any act of creation. Repeating the word filament three times in line 4, and combining that with the powerful verb launch, Whitman does clarify the significance of the biological spider, removed from its metaphorical meaning.