Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Faculdade de Letras
Introdução às Literaturas de Língua Inglesa

A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman and the search of

meaning

Professor: Marcel Lima

Alumni: Thalita de Carvalho Pereira

Belo Horizonte/MG
2011
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman and the search of meaning

One of the themes explored in the poem A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt
Whitman is the search for meaning in life, for sustenance for the soul. In this
essay I’ll indicate the points that direct to this conclusion.

Walt Whitman’s poem A Noiseless Patient Spider is written in two five-line

stanzas in free verse, which means it has no metrical pattern or end rhyme.
However the poet uses other kinds of pattern and figures of speech to give
emphasis, balance and rhythm to it.

The first stanza of the poem is talking about the spider. In the first verse the
poet defines the spider as “A Noiseless, patient spider”; making use of the
figure of speech personification. The speaker is explaining how he observers
the spider in her solitary exploration of the vacant space by means of building
her web, which she does in order to capture insects that are her nourishment: “I
mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated: / Mark’d how, to explore
the vacant, vast surrounding, / It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out
of itself; / Ever unreeling them-ever tirelessly speeding them.” We can notice the
use of alliteration in line three: vacant – vast, and line four: forth, filament,
filament, filament; which gives rhythm to the poem, despite the absence of
metrical pattern and rhymes.

In the second stanza the poet is talking to his soul, as indicated by the first
verse: “And you, O my soul, where you stand”. In this stanza, he points out that
his soul is in the middle of infinite spaces, searching for a meaning, for some
kind of connection that shall nourish it: “Surrounded, detached, in measureless
oceans of space, / Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, - seeking, the
spheres, to connect them; / Till the bridge you need, be form’d – till the ductile
anchor hold; / Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my soul.”
The use of alliteration is also present in the second stanza in lines six and
seven: stand, surrounded, detached. The poet also anaphora in this stanza by
the repetition of till in lines nine and ten.
A Noiseless, Patient Spider is a metaphor of the search for physical
nourishment endeavoured by the spider and the search for spiritual
nourishment endeavoured by the human beings’ souls. The scenarios are the
same, though they have different proportions; the spider is at a little promontory
that looks like endless space and the human soul is in the universe, which is
believed to be infinite. As the spider spins its gossamer to catch insects, the
soul is constantly trying to make its body catch somewhere so that it may be
fulfilled in its existence.

The infinite search for connection is tiresome. Why can’t we just connect with
ourselves?