A Noiseless Patient Spider Themes

Whitman focuses on this theme about as directly as he can. The first five lines are all about nature. He uses the spider as an example of how things work in the natural world. The second five lines...

This is another theme which Whitman confronts head-on. After all, he spends half the poem talking about the soul, which is a pretty spiritual concept. That said, Whitman always has trouble doing li...

Whitman helps us out here by actually using the word. Remember how that spider "stood isolated" in line 2? The poet makes a big deal about how the soul is also cut-off from other objects and the ou...

The theme "Exploration" is easy to pick out, since the spider and the soul both explore. This theme helps us to see the more positive aspects of the poem. There is a hopeful note here, especially a...