Skip to content

Solitude & Noiseless Patient Spider

Prompt

Read "Solitude" by Lord Byron and answer the following questions.

  1. What are the dominant ideas of stanzas #1 & #2
  2. What thought is concluded in the first stanza?
  3. Did the break cause me to hesitate or accelerate?

Read" Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman and answer the following questions.

  1. Why did Whitman decide to break up the stanza into two stanzas?
  2. Look at the lines. What do you notice about their form?

Response

Solitude

  1. The dominant ideas of stanzas #1 seem to be contradicting the definition of solitude. Specifically, the author argues how being in nature isn't necessarily true solitude - the author in a sense is able to interact and converse with nature, which is shown with his emphasis on the descriptions of nature.

The following stanza seems to continue the idea of solitude. It's more or less defined as being a loner, even when in the presence of others - "the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men."

  1. That being physically alone in nature is not true solitude. The speaker argues that when one is alone in nature, one is still engaged in a form of dialogue or "converse" with Nature's beauty and wonders. Therefore, this does not qualify as solitude in the speaker's eyes.
  2. The break didn't necessarily cause me to hesitate or accelerate. I think the break in a sense left a physical and literary contrast between the two stanzas, which in a sense emphasizes the speaker's argument on the perceived definition of solitude.

Noiseless Patient Spider

  1. I think Whitman decided to break the stanza into two stanzas to emphasize the contrast between the two ideas. The first stanza is primarily focused on the spider which talks about building the web, etc., while the second stanza is focused on the speaker's soul, which is rather isolated and needs the "connections". This contrast creates a sort of parallel, where the spider is building its web, and the speaker is building his soul.
  2. There are both five lines within each stanza - which further adds to the parallel. Same "overall structure", yet different content, while having the same over arching meaning. There also is a bit of repetition/parallelism, with the words "filament, filament, filament" in the first stanza and "till the..." in the second stanza.