A Noiseless Patient Spider
by Walt Whitman
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At a glance:
- Author: Walt Whitman
- First Published: 1868
- Type of Poem: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Spiders, Immortality, Religion, Loneliness, Work or workers, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Patience
The Poem
“A Noiseless Patient Spider” is a short poem, its ten uneven lines divided into two stanzas of five lines each. The initial focus of the poem is a spider that is being observed by the speaker. The use of the indefinite article “a” in the title and the first line individualizes this arachnid, separating it from the representative mass and emphasizing the personal nature of its efforts. The adjectives “noiseless” and “patient” anticipate the poem’s tone of pathos.
This poem is written in the first person, which is typical of lyric poetry; less...
(The entire page is 1755 words.)
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