A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER

About Whitman:

Walt Whitman (31 May 1819- March 26 1892) was an American poet and essayist. He achieved immense fame after the publication of his poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, in 1855. Having worked as a printer’s devil, he had self-published his poetry collection and kept revising it till the end of his time. He continues to be a favorite among litterateurs for his unique outlook. He was a humanist, and swung between transcendentalism and realism in his art. He is called the father of free verse even though he has not invented it, and it is in his poetry that free verse achieves its full potential.

His work boldly asserts the worth of the individual, and the oneness of all humanity. Whitman's defiant break with traditional poetic concerns and style exerted a major influence on American thought and literature. Born near Huntington, New York, Whitman was the second of a family of nine children. His father was a carpenter. The poet had a particularly close relationship with his mother. In 1838 and 1839 Whitman edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, in Huntington. When he became bored with his job he went back to the New York City to work as a printer and journalist. Whitman wrote poems and stories for popular magazines and made political speeches. He spent several years at various jobs, including buildings houses; Whitman began writing a new kind of poetry and thereafter neglected business.

In 1855 Whitman issued the first of many editions of   Leaves if Grass, a volume of poetry in a new kind of verification, far different from his sentimental rhymed verse of the 1840s. Because he immodestly praised the human body and glorified the senses, Whitman was forced to publish the book at his own expenses, setting some of the type himself. His name did not appear on the title page, but the engraved frontispiece portrait shows him posed, arms akimbo, in shirt sleeves, hat cocked at a rakish angle. Whiteman spent the rest of life striving to become that poet. The 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass contained 12 untitled poems, written in long cadenced lines that resemble the unrhymed verse of the King James Version of the Bible. The longest and generally considered the best, later entitled "Songs of Myself," was a vision off a symbolic "I" enraptured by the senses, vicariously embracing all people and places from the Atlantic to the pacific Oceans. No other poem in the first edition has the power of this poem, although "the sleepers," another visionary flight, symbolizing life, death, and rebirth, comes nearest.

Stimulated by a letter of congratulations from the eminent New England essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, Whitman hastily put together another edition of Leaves of Grass (1856), with revisions and additions; he would continued to revise the collection throughout his life. The most significant 1856 poem is "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," in which the poet vicariously joins his readers and all past and future passengers. In the third edition (1860), Whitman began to give his poetry a more allegorical structure (see Allegory). In "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," a mockingbird (the voice of nature) teaches a little boy the future poet) the meaning of death. Italian opera, of which Whitman was extremely fond, strongly influenced the music of this poem. Two new clusters of the poems, "Children of Adam" and "Calamus," deal with sexual love and male friendship. Drum-Taps (1865, later added to the 1867 edition of leaves) reflects Whitman's deepening awareness of the significance between North and South. Sequel to drum-Taps (1866) contains "when lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," the great elegy for president Abraham Lincoln, and one of Whitman's most popular works, " O Captain1 My Captain!"" passage to India" (1871) used modern communications and transportation as a symbols for its transcendent vision of the union of East and West and of the soul with God. Finally, in 1881, Whitman arranged his poems to his satisfaction, but he continued to add new poems to the various editions of Leaves of Grass until the final version was produced in 1892. A posthumous cluster, "Old Age Echoes," appeared in 1897. All of his poems were included in the definitive "Reader's Edition" of Leaves of Grass (1965), edited by Harold W.Blodgett and Sculley Bradley.

During the civil war Whitman ministered to wounded soldiers in Union army hospitals in Washington, D.C. he remained there, working as a government clerk, until 1873, when he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He then went to live with his brother George in Camden, New Jersey, until 1884. When  he bought his own house. He lived there, writing and revising Leaves of Grass, despite failing health, until his death. In his later years Whitman also wrote some prose of lasting value. The essays in Democratic vistas (1871) are now considered a classic discussion of the theory of democracy and its possibilities. The collections specimen Days and Collect (1882) contains his earliest recollection descriptions of the war years and of the assassination of Lincoln, and nature noted written in old age.

Today, Whitman's poetry has been translated into every major language. It is widely recognized as a formative influence on the work of such American writers as Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens. Allen Ginsberg in particular was inspired by Whitman's bold treatment of sexuality. Many modern scholars have sought to assess Whitman's life and literary career. Works such as thee 5-volume edition of his correspondence (1961-1969) and the 16-volume definitive edition of his Collected Writings (1963-1980) provide a balanced view of his achievements.

SUMMARY & ANALYSIS OF POEM:

Noiseless: the adjective is used to emphasize the stillness of the spider.

Promontory: a piece of high land that ends abruptly on one side; a cliff overlooking the water.

Filament: thread, fiber.

A Noiseless Patient Spider is a short poem, its ten uneven lines divided into two stanzas of five lines each. The separation of stanzas in this poem represents a shift from literal (the speaker watching the spider make its web on the rock) to figurative (the speaker addressing his soul's attempts to make connections in the world). The initial focus of the poem is a spider that is being observed by the speaker. Whitman uses the simple imagery of a spider to portray a deeper human emotion. The speaker sets up the metaphor, which is a quiet spider, alone on a point of land jutting (projecting/extending out above or beyond a surface or boundary) out into a body of water. The aim of the poem is to draw the comparison between the speaker's soul and the spider, which is why the two stanzas mirror each other in size and structure.

This poem is written in the first person, which is typical of lyric poetry. In this poem, Whitman makes excellent use of imagery and metaphor. The speaker starts by vividly describing the experience of watching the spider weave its web, allowing the reader to share his fascination. The first stanza of the poem describes that the poet has come across a solitary (lonely) spider on a promontory (cliff). As he watches closely, the spider secretes its filament (thread) to create a web, as if to explore the vacant space around it through the web. The poet here notes the spider’s tireless efforts and he is immediately reminded of his soul and the soul of man in general. Whitman repeats the title of the poem, “A noiseless patient spider”, as the first line, telling us that the spider’s quiet patience is important to the poem. Then the speaker goes on to say “It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, / Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them”. Even though, at this point, the reader only knows that the spider is on an isolated piece of land with a “vacant, vast surrounding,” we feel the theme of the poem to be the spider’s continual effort to make a connection to something or someone. Whitman uses the technique called alliteration in the line “vacant vast surrounding,” in order to put a larger emphasis the feeling of loneliness.

In the second stanza, the poet is reminded of the nature of mankind by watching the spider. He addresses his own soul as he realizes that it too is trying to explore the endless potential of life. Standing solitary, yet surrounded by the immensity (vastness) of life, the poet’s soul ventures (projects) out of its place, filament by filament, like the spider, and seeks to connect to the outer world, to seize the opportunities offered by life and perhaps attain the meaning he has been looking for.

The mood of this poem is helpless, lonely, and desperate, but at the same time, strangely hopeful because of the spider’s determination to find a connection. With the repetition of the word “filament”, the speaker illustrates the constant effort of the spider. By using the word “till” in the last two lines, the speaker is saying that the spider will not stop casting out his web until it lands on something upon which he can begin spinning his web. This delicate and simple spider represents the common emotion that human’s feel when they are lonely and have no one with whom to connect. The way that the speaker describes this unattached spider surrounded by “measureless oceans of space” emphasizes loneliness in a way that makes it easier for the reader to understand. By saying “till the ductile/ anchor hold,” the speaker is expressing the instability one feels when they are not connected to another human, and their desire to be anchored down. With the entire poem making use of a spider as a metaphor for a human, the reader can get a good understanding of the loneliness and the determination that one might feel to ceaselessly cast out their soul until it catches on to the soul of another.

EXTENSIVE READING:

Walt Whitman describes a spider beginning to work on its web. It's doing the trickiest, most uncertain part of the job: trying to lay down the first line. It’s shooting out lots of little strings, trying to get one of them to stick to something. This poem is not just about a spider, the speaker tells us that this is a metaphor for the soul, which also explores and tries to connect. Walt Whitman discovers that a spider has something to teach him.

In the first stanza, the poet observes the spider is isolated. It stands on a little promontory, a little piece of rock projecting out into the air, where the space that surrounds it is "vacant" and "vast." Poor little spider, so   tiny and alone in the big universe1 it sends filaments, the silky threads that it uses to build its web, out into the vast, vacant space around it. The spider is all alone, and there seems to be nothing around it, yet it keeps on trying to make contact with something outside of itself. This isn't easy. The space is so vast. Yet the spider keeps on trying. It is "patient," it is "noiseless" – it doesn't protest or com plain about the difficulty of its task.

It doesn't get tried. It just keep on sending "filament, filament, filament" into the world outside itself. We might surmise that the spider has an instinctive faith that there is something out there in the vast empty space that if it keeps on sending out its filaments, eventually one will find a place to land, and the spider cam then began to build its web.

In the second stanza, the poet makes an explicit analogy between the spider and himself. Likewise the spider, the poet is surrounded by "measureless oceans of space." He, too, wants to make contact with something in the universe. Just as the spider wants its silken threads to connect with something solid, so the poet's soul wants to connect with "the Spheres" The poet wants to create a bridge between himself and something that matters in the vast, vacant universe. There are many ways to interpret "the spheres," the object of the poet's longing. They might be other people, or love, or truth, or beauty, or God. Perhaps the poems that the poet writes are his filaments, and he writes the poems in order to try it make contact with whatever it is that he seeks. The "spheres" are hard to find. If you thinks about how the vast space is, and how relatively tiny the planets are, you can see it would take a long time for someone casting about at random in space to land on a planet. Here, the poet seeks to learn a lesson from the spider. The spider is "patient." The spider is "noiseless." The spider keeps on trying, without complaint. So too must the poet keep on trying, keep on writing his poems, until someday his thread will "catch."

Critical Analysis

"A Noiseless patient Spider" is a wonderful piece of poetry. Whitman is able to compare the life of humans to a simple spider flying through the wind. He tries to find ways to accommodate his soul and find a place for it among the rest of the soul-filled world, hence the bit about venturing, seeking, and connecting. Here the poet sees the spider which is travelling by throwing out a filament, and if the filament catches, the spider can move along it. The poet too is looking for a place where he can be content. Both the poet and the spider need to keep looking till they find their place.

Whitman characterizes the life of the soul as a search for Truth amidst the void. Ultimately, he asserts that the soul, while innately driven to search for spiritual anchors throughout one's earthly existence, will not find peace and certainly until freed from the body at death.

The spider that builds its web by casting out "filaments" until one catches and holds mirrors that soul's inherent tendency to constantly search for spiritual certainty. However, Whitman distinguished between the two when he describes the spider "launching forth filament, filament, filament" in its repetitious attempts to connect to something, and the soul "ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres…" the soul is unlike the spider in its complexity—its ability to search further and wider. The poem invokes death with the phrase the "bridge you will need" Dissolution from the body in death becomes the unlimited step in the soul's life-long search for truth. The soul is essentially uninvolved in this process and yet, it comes back into play as it enters the afterlife. Whitman subtly relates the "bridge" to the "gossamer thread" the vast emptiness of life to inhibit it.

In the poem, Whitman makes the assertion that the soul, while innately driven to search for spiritual anchors throughout one's earthly existence, will not find peace and certainty until it is truly freed from the body at death. The soul's innate tendency to constantly search for spiritual certainty is illustrated by the spider that is design to build its web no matter the circumstances. However, Whitman makes a clear distinction between the two as he describes a spider "launch[ing] forth filament, filament, filament" in its repetitious attempt to connect to something, and the soul "ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres…". The soul is unlike the spider in its complexity—its ability to search further and wider. However, the soul does not find peace until death. Death, the "bridge you will need to formed", is inevitable, but is the ultimate step in the soul's life search for truth. While deigned to search throughout the lifetime, the bridge it "need[s]" will "be formed"—the soul is essentially uninvolved in this process. But, it comes back into play as it enters the afterlife and makes each final connection without the vast emptiness of life to distract it.