‘‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’’ is an expression of
the pain that results when that connection is
obscured, lost, or doubted, and of the ceaseless
effort the soul puts forth in order to recover it. It
is this that gives the poem its poignancy, its
power, its fragile hope.
Source:Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on ‘‘A Noiseless
Patient Spider,’’ inPoetry for Students, Gale, Cengage
Learning, 2010.
Ernest Smith
In the following excerpt, Smith examines the
spiritual elements in the cluster of poems titled
‘‘Whispers of Heavenly Death’’ and identifies ‘‘A
Noiseless Patient Spider’’ as ‘‘one of Whitman’s
greatest achievements in the short form.’’
The spiritual dimension of American poet
Walt Whitman’s work has received no shortage
of critical commentary. Whitman himself clearly
saw his work as spiritual, going so far as to claim
in his 1855 preface to the first edition ofLeaves
of Grassthat the work of the poet would soon
come to supplant that of churches and priests.
At the same time, he envisioned an expanded
Leavesas a sort of ‘‘New Bible,’’ and by 1872,
in another preface to his lifelong project, con-
cluded that his by now massive book of poems
had ‘‘one deep purpose’’ above all others, ‘‘the
religious purpose’’ (Collect 461). Pondering
possible titles early on for what would become
Leaves of Grass, Whitman once wrote, ‘‘What
name? Religious Canticles’’ (Asselineau 221).
Many contemporary readers seemed to agree
with Whitman, hailing him as a prophet inaugu-
rating a new religion. Whitman scholars David
Kuebrich and David Reynolds both describe
how some early readers of Whitman went so
far as to found religious groups and, in at least
one case in England, a church devoted to follow-
ing his writings.
But the spiritual aspect of Whitman’s project
is complex, and it changes over time and in the
nine editions ofLeaves of Grass. The goal of
this essay is not to define spirituality in Whitman
specifically or to unravel components of his
spiritual vision, but to argue instead that any
acknowledgment of the power of Whitman’s
spiritual message needs to account for the way
in which that message evolves through the
expanded editions ofLeaves, and how the poetry
ultimately emphasizes the soul’s embrace of the
unknown over the known. For Whitman, the very
process of questioning, searching, and existing in
uncertainty is the vital element of spiritual health,
as opposed to certainty of the soul’s destination.
In gauging his spiritual message, a reader should
resist examining any period of Whitman’s work,
or any edition ofLeaves, in isolation from other
periods or poems. Tracing the progression of his
voice and subjects, so useful to stylistic and
historically oriented studies of Whitman, is less
effective when considering a central theme such as
spirituality, a theme that develops organically and
deepens as the book grows in size and scope.
Hence, the approach here would claim that the
confident, sexually vibrant, ecstatic poet of body
and soul in 1855 be read alongside the doubtful
Drum-Tapspoet who struggles to comprehend
and console in 1865, and in turn beside the med-
itative, at times faltering mode of the death poems
spanning 1871–1882. Central to this rationale is
the fact that Whitman’s treatment of spirituality
rejects the temporal and that reading his treat-
ment of the theme as one of [the] phases in a
poet’s development diminishes the complexity,
fluidity, and evolving nature of the theme. The
levels of exuberance, reflection, anguish, doubt,
and certitude in individual poems modulate as
Leavesgrows, with new poems speaking to pre-
existing ones, often demanding that readers reex-
amine their response to an earlier poem or the
poet’s overall treatment of the theme. Such a
methodology agrees with Kuebrich’s assertion
that ‘‘Whitman did arrive at a unified religious
vision during the process of writing the first edi-
tion of theLeaves, and he continued to elaborate
that vision throughout the rest of his life. The
individual poems and sections of theLeavesare
informed by this new religion and they cannot be
considered in isolation.’’
A further complexity exists in the fact that
the appeal of Whitman’s personal spirituality
cannot easily be separated from the spiritualFOR WHITMAN, THE VERY PROCESS OF
QUESTIONING, SEARCHING, AND EXISTING IN
UNCERTAINTY IS THE VITAL ELEMENT OF SPIRITUAL
HEALTH, AS OPPOSED TO CERTAINTY OF THE SOUL’S
DESTINATION.’’A Noiseless Patient Spider