TP-CASTT Poetry Project

By Leslie Rojas, Josue Munoz, Claudia Guzman

Title: A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

This poem is most likely about a spider who is making a web in silence.

It could also be about a spider who is waiting for its prey to land on the web so it
can eat.

Is this actually literal or does it have a completely different meaning?

Paraphrase
A noiseless patient spider i saw where on a little high point of land projecting
into a body of water it stood alone, i saw how it explored the abandon huge
area around it, it launches web over and over again out of itself, ever
unwinding it, ever so with great effort advancing on. And you Oh my spider
where you stand, surrounded, separated, in huge amounts of space like the
ocean, Continuously reflecting, daring to doing something dangerous,
throwing, looking for the webs to connect them together. TIll the bridge of
web forms completely, till the strong shapeable anchor of web holds on, till
the thicker web you shoot catching somewhere, Oh my spider.
Connotation
This poem is about spider making a web and how many times it takes the
spider in a vast area before it finally gets the first web down and starts to build
from there.

As Well as the soul relating to this huge empty space and how alone both the
spider and the soul are, when trying to make connections to someone or
something.

In the end it is saying when they both finally make the first connection it can be
relieving.
Attitude/Tone
The tone and attitude of the poem is trying to make the reader feel alone in a
vacant space.

Like the spider alone trying to build its web.

As you read, you could feel the dark loneliness of both the spider and the soul
Shifts
This poem shifts in view and person
It starts off with the spider viewing it from a distance
Shifts to a person mostly likely Whitman viewing the spider
Then shifts again to his soul
Title Revisited: A Noiseless Patient Spider
After reading the poem and then going to the title again the name of this poem
is pretty literal with the exception about the soul.

This poem shows with words how a spider is patient and alone when building a
web in a vast area having to try again and again before it finallys anchors one
of its webs on something.

Then when finally achieving this it can build its web.

Theme
The theme is isolation

Throughout the poem, Whitman used the spider as a representation of being

isolated

EX: I markd where on a little promontory it stood isolated ...O my soul where
you stand, surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space

These two lines imply how lonely the spider is, then comparing his soul to being
isolated as well
Video