Choose a poem from Walt Whitman and explain how it reveals Romantic thinking. Support with specific examples from the poem.

In Walt Whitman's "A Noiseless, Patient Spider," there are
a number of characteristics of American
Romanticism.

Characteristics, in general, include: the
emotional, individualism, a love of separateness or nature, creative vitality...,
and...introspection, among several others.

I chose this
poem because it provided an easy identification of these characteristics. In the poem,
the speaker watches a spider as it patiently builds its web, repeating its movements
over and over and over again. The spider is on an isolated "promontory" from which it
throws out "filament, filament, filament" giving one the sense of quiet concentration
and continuous endeavor, in order to explore the "vacant, vast surrounding" as it
continues to work tirelessly.

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A noiseless, patient
spider,

I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood,
isolated;

Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast
surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament,
filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them--ever
tirelessly speeding them.

In
the second stanza, Whitman makes a connection between the life of a spider and a human
being. The speaker notes that he, too, is surrounded by enormous, immeasurable space:
"ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing" to learn of his environment, much like the
spider. This continues until man can build an anchored bridge to connect the spheres of
life with a "thread" that will somehow connect him to the world—connect his soul to the
world.

And
you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in
measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing,
throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;

Till the
bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor
hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere,
O my Soul.

The
emotional essence is most evident in the poem's last line, where
the speaker hopes that the "thread" flung will find a connection for his soul. A sense
of the individualism is found in the second stanza, where a man
addresses his own soul, on its personal journey through the universe, trying to find a
"joining" of some kind. Nature is evident with the metaphor the
speaker uses when comparing the work of the patient spider to the work of a man, even to
referring to the "filament" of the spider, and the "gossamer thread" of the
man.

The aspect of creative energy is
also present in comparing the microcosm of the spider's world to the microcosm of the
speaker— as isolated as the spider, but looking for a link between a world of solitude
and one of community with someone or something greater than himself. Lastly, there is
the use of introspection present as the speaker looks at the
example of the spider and finds a parallel with his own life, to find some meaning in
his life experience; the work of the spider and the man are metaphorically similar, but
the speaker's ability to find meaning in his existence alludes to a higher plane of
existence.