Walt Whitman And A Noiseless Patient Spider

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were both highly influential writers in the 20th century. Dickinson portrayed the ideas of realism while Whitman portrayed the ideas of the transcendentalist movement. Whitman spent his youth in New York and became a teacher at the age of 17. He eventually quit his job as a teacher because he believed it absurd to force students to conform to the system of society. Dickinson’s life was quite different. She was an agoraphobic who spent the majority of her time in isolation from others. Although Whitman and Dickinson favored two separate movements, they were very similar in many different ways. They shared many core beliefs, themes, and ideas throughout their literary works. These similarities are in Walt Whitman’s …show more content…
In “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” Whitman describes a spider casting out a web in hopes that the web will bring the spider to good destiny. He uses the spider to emphasize the importance of being open to growth even if it might seem risky. This idea is evident when Whitman writes how the spider “launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them” (Whitman 4-5). This theme is similar to Dickinson’s “Nature is What We See.” In “Nature is What We See,” Dickinson emphasizes the idea that even though nature might be very complex, one should never be afraid of venturing out into nature. This idea is evident when Dickinson says that “Nature is what we know, Yet have no art to say, So impotent Our Wisdom is To her Simplicity” (Dickinson 9-12). Both Whitman and Dickinson emphasize the idea that one should never be afraid of going out of their comfort …show more content…
This is evident when Whitman writes that “the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath.” This theme is similar to Dickinson’s “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died.” In “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died,” Dickinson emphasizes the idea that one should not focus on death because they will never be able to experience it. This idea is evident when Dickinson describes how a fly passed through at the moment of a person’s death: "With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see.” Dickinson uses the argument of how people will never be able to experience death to explain how people should instead focus on the lives they are living now. Both Whitman and Dickinson clearly emphasize the importance of fully taking advantage of