A Noiseless Patient Spider
A noiseless patient spider, 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. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. In Walter Whitman’s poem, A Noiseless Patient Spider, the speaker is not necessarily identified. Instead, it is understood that the speaker is a bigger creature looking down on the smaller creature, which is a spider. This is seen through the speakers description of the spider as being “noiseless and patient”. Clearly, only a bigger creature would see the spider from such a clueless perspective because it is not known how spiders perceive things, which is evident that the speaker does not either. As for the tone, the speaker seems to be admiring the process of a spider weaving its web, which he then compares to his own soul. He uses certain diction to suggest that his soul is just like that spider in the vast, vacant space. It shoots out filament only hoping that it connects to something, but when it does not, it continues to do it over and over again; thus, I believe the tone that the speaker uses in the poem is sanguine due to the fact that like the spider his soul is lost in the vastness of space, trying to connect itself, yet apart from this, he talks in confidence of his soul being like the filament of the spider and connecting to something. It builds a bridge that is needed to fulfill itself and its goals, which is seen when the speakers says “till the gossamer thread you fling(like the spider), catch somewhere, o my soul.” As a result, the tone then creates a theme of continuing to find one’s purpose despite the realization of the vast emptiness surrounding it. Despite the constant failure of the “filament” or “soul” not connecting, one must continue to fling its thread, knowing that eventually it will connect to something fulfilling.
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October 2014
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