Poetry Essay Rough Draft

Nicholas Jerrems
Professor Wexler
English 495esm
September 13, 2012

The transcendentalists of the late 19th century were known for their philosophical
exploration in regards to experience outside of the physical realm. This type of search is evident
in Walt Whitman’s A Noiseless Patient Spider. Whitman was never necessarily an existentialist,
but this poem definitely explores themes relating to the meaning of life, or the search for it.
Explicating this poem would prove to be quite fruitless from a strictly formalist school of
thought, so it seems necessary to adopt a slight transcendentalist lens in order to fully appreciate
the texts meaning. Despite popular criticism of the transcendentalist movement in which they
were viewed as “mystics” rather than scholars, Whitman’s poem utilizes a few important poetic
devices that aid in delivering the meaning of his poem. It is important to focus on the imagery of
the poem, its free verse form, and its objective correlatives in order to properly explicate it.
   
Imagery is the main conveyor of theme in Whitman’s poem. From the very first line “A
noiseless patient spider” (L1), whitman is using utilizing a physical image to eventually convey a
spiritual experience. The spider is nestled on a peak of rocks, or as Whitman put it
“promontory” (2). Throughout the first five lines of the poem, it would even seem as if the point
of the poem may be no different from that of a haiku that’s purpose is to convey a simple image.
Yet understanding the poem’s context in relation to the literary movement of the time should
nudge us towards the belief that this imagery isn’t merely for picture painting, but for metaphorical representation. In line three the spider’s environment is noted as being
“vacant” (L3). Such a strong word should anchor in the reader’s mind as holding some type of
importance, even if that importance isn’t clearly visible yet. Vacancy relates to emptiness,
emptiness in the human experience tends to relate to sadness and confusion. One word
describing the spider’s surroundings can have that much meaning. The fourth and fifth lines
show the reader the spider’s action of “[launching] forth filament, filament, filament, out of
itself/Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them” (L4-L5). The action of “launching”
suggests an urgency or importance in the action. There’s a certain level of anxiety coming from
the image painted for the reader. The sixth line is the first time the author refers to a human
quality by referring to their “soul” (L6). The spider is imagery used in a metaphorical sense to
portray the author’s soul.

Something really neat about this poem is how its form relates to its content. Through the
use of free verse, Whitman is able to structure the poem in a way that shows the “vacancy” and
emptiness felt by the author. Lines one through five of the poem represent the first stanza that
paints the image of the spider for the reader. As the author gets further into the relation of the
spider to his soul, the stanzas become singular lines, spaced by an emptiness of page. For
example, in the 7th line the author states that they are “Surrounded, detached, in measureless
oceans of space” (L7). When the poem is viewed in print, this line is in fact surrounded by the
other lines, but detached from them since they are now separate stanzas. Whitman creates the
“oceans of space” on the page through the use of form to visually portray the meaning. By this
time the reader is only a little over half way through the poem, but they can already make
assumptions about the theme of the poem. The soul is similar to the spider in that it is in anendless search for something, “[launching] forth filament” (L4) and trying to make connections
with a web of meaning.

Line eight creates an image of a soul, or spider, wandering around, trying to make
connection amongst the “spheres” (L8). Spheres seems to be a metaphor that uses the image of
space, or planets, to convey the isolation of each individual human being and how the soul tries
endlessly to make connections between the various ones. In the next line, the author uses
imagery once again by showing a “bridge” (L9) and “anchor” (L9) as some sort of of concrete
solution to this endless wandering. They are the connections that give life meaning. Although it
is not blatantly stated, the spiders endless search for a place to anchor its web is similar to a
human being’s search for belonging in life. The final line connects the two images of the spider
and the soul by stating “Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul” (L10).
The author neatly ties the two together to show the correlation of searching for purpose and place
in the universe.

It is important to note the use of objective correlation, whether it was intentional or not.
Although the spider seems to be the inspiration for the poem, it’s importance lies not in its
specific definition, but in the theme and emotion the spider imagery is able to get across. This is
what really makes poetry special because when a person sees something in nature and finds a
way to personify it with their emotion, their is the sense of interconnectivity amongst things. And
this is certainly something that someone like Whitman would want to emphasize.