Preview

The Alliteration Of The Spider In Walt Whitman's The Raven

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
292 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Alliteration Of The Spider In Walt Whitman's The Raven
Sometimes a concept is so large and complex that it must be compared to something simpler in order for it to take form and make sense within the mind. This is demonstrated as Walt Whitman uses a poem about a spider as a metaphor for the soul. By describing the spider as “patient” within the first line, the speaker utilizes personification to make the spider more relatable for later in the poem. The words “isolated”, “vacant”, and “vast” brings a separated, lonely, and depressed tone to the poem. Also, the alliteration of the “v” sound makes these words more prominent to grab the reader’s attention. Repetition is the key to understand the works of this spider, so the speaker represents this by using repetitive phrasing. “Filament, filament,
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    How does the poet use techniques to engage the reader? ‘War Without End’ and ‘Description of an Idea’
    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages

    How does the poet use techniques to engage the reader? ‘War Without End’ and ‘Description of an Idea’

    The use of repetitive phrases in the poem ‘War Without End’ is used to emphase the repetition of car accidents and crashes on our roads. For example ‘the war was not like any other war’, gives the reader the feeling as if excessive car accidents are metaphorically killing as many people as Genghis Khan did in his attempt to murder every enemy. Whereas in ‘Description of an Idea’ repetition is used to emphase the reader to feel as though the cause is important and should be recognised. Dawe uses the repetition of words like ‘You can’ and ‘someone else will’ to intrigue the reader into feeling as though if they were to ‘nail it to a cross’ it would ‘rise again after 3 days’ this gives the reader the impression that what they decide to do will influence other people decisions. This technique helps to make the reader think of what they would do if they were in that situation or under those circumstances.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Caught In The Widow's Web By Gordon Grice Summary
    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Caught In The Widow's Web By Gordon Grice Summary

    When describing his perception of the widow as a child he says it was, “worthy of ritual disposition, like an enemy whose death is not sufficient.” By using this simile, he helps his audience gain a better sense of what he was taught to believe as a young boy which is that the spider has no regard for life and kills or hurts without a motive. Alliteration can also be found at the end of this essay when Grice writes, “world with the widow.” He wants the reader to focus on that section of the text because it contains the important meaning that God created the widow for a reason, although one may not perceive it that way. Grice strategically uses parallelism in this essay as well. When describing the fears people direct towards the widow, he says, “It is black; it avoids the light; it is a voracious carnivore.” The use of the phrase “it is” is repeated in these lines to organize the idea and make it easier to understand. He utilizes these literary devices so he can portray the overall meaning to the readers in a way they can connect to and understand…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Figurative Language In The Raven
    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages

    How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Figurative Language In The Raven

    “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is a poem about a man that is being hunted by a raven. The man that is being hunted by a raven is hearing a voice calling out “Lenore” at his chamber door. After awhile he starts to notice that he is being hunted by a raven.…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Personification In Charles Wright's Little Apocalypse
    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Personification In Charles Wright's Little Apocalypse

    The poem includes “the clouds assemble and mumble their messages” (6) and “the grass, in its green time, bows to whatever moves it” (11). The clouds must have been given the chance to “assemble” (6) and converge through the use of the same wind that swayed the grass. Personification does well to develop a sense of connectivity that all life has on Earth. Such examples are examples of personification namely because clouds cannot innately “mumble their messages” (6) and the ground does not innately shudder as an ant walks upon it (3). These non-living entities are given human characteristics in the form of sentiments and actions not natural to these entities in real…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Quoth the Raven (the Raven Poem Explication)
    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Quoth the Raven (the Raven Poem Explication)

    “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe is about a grieving man who is visited by a strange Raven who can only say the word “nevermore”. Believing the Raven to be some sort of prophet, he asks him a series of questions, which the Raven may only reply with “nevermore”. The man continues to ask the questions, and becomes more and more distraught with each one, until he ultimately decides that he will be mournful for eternity, which leads us into the theme of the poem: if you dwell on their grief for too long will be the cause of their own anguish.…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sharon Olds
    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sharon Olds

    Throughout the poem, repetition is also used to draw attention and add emphasis onto important references. Olds stated, “-like…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Crossing the Swamp
    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Crossing the Swamp

    At the beginning of the poem, there is a use of cacophonic sounds of “branching vines.” “Burred faintly belching bogs” are used to describe the ugly sounds of the swamp as the character takes a step forward; which only add more to the misery and struggle of the speaker. The repetition of the word “Here”” is also very unique because it is emphasizing the location of where the character is being tortured by having to walk into this swamp of misery and struggle. There is another sound the speaker describes “that sink silently on to the black slack earthsoup” (lines 20-22). This diction considered as imagery, because it is making a comparison between the swamp and earthsoup.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Walt Whitman's A Noiseless Patient Spider
    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Walt Whitman's A Noiseless Patient Spider

    In Walt Whitman’s 1860’s lyric poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, this poem was written during the 1860’s and published in the 1871 – 1872 editions of “Leave of Grass”. Whitman depicts an equivalent relationship between a spider and an individual. I believe the spider symbolizes the speaker’s mind/soul, and he speaks to as though he is talking to someone else. The speaker uses the poem to illustrate a comparative relationship between what seems to be a quest for spiritual knowledge or enlightenment and the construction of a spider’s web. The spider represents the speaker’s mind/soul or consciousness, and the actions that the spider takes, such as selecting a place to build a web, as well as physically linking the strands of the web together,…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    phillip wheatly
    • 281 Words
    • 2 Pages

    phillip wheatly

    How does the structure of a poem affect its meaning? – depending on how something is read or written it can be sent across in a different manner…

    • 281 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Raven Literary Analysis
    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Raven Literary Analysis

    “The Raven” is an exploration into the loneliness, despair, and insanity associated with the loss of a loved one. Through the clever use of structure, repetition and symbolism Edgar Allan Poe manages to draw us into this feeling of morbid despair and with every use of the haunting refrain “nevermore” upon which the chilling cadence of this poem is built Poe transforms a story steeped in sorrow into a tale of supernatural fear and insanity as only he can.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How Does Henry Longfellow Use Repetition In The Tide Rises Tide Falls
    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages

    How Does Henry Longfellow Use Repetition In The Tide Rises Tide Falls

    In Longfellow’s poem, he grasps the reader’s attention by using repetition through imagery and the title to explain the traveler’s life. Sara Constantkis states, “Longfellow uses repetition to complement the images of the waves on the beach and provide the poem with a traditional and familiar structure, Longfellow also uses…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Joy Harjo Poem
    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Joy Harjo Poem

    Comparisons with metaphors or similes are prevalent when drawing the connection with something real to an abstract idea, and this then creates a sense of intensified beauty. The line “Where trouble melts like lemon drops” is a key example of this concept (Kamakawiwo’ole line 11). Kamakawiwo’ole takes the idea of trouble and worry, and allows it to beautifully flow into the idea of a lemon candy. Similarly, Harjo’s line “Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their / tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, / listen to them. They are alive poems” provides the comparison of nature, to poems. Both of which share their own sense of beauty, but is shown in different ways, thus making them perfect subjects to compare. In addition, the authors use the strategy of repetition to emphasize and almost exaggerate their point. For example, the word “remember” is repeated sixteen times throughout the twenty six line poem, and the chorus of “Somewhere” is repeated a total of two times. One article writes, “Lyrics depend heavily on repeated content, usually refrains or choruses. The development of ideas must take account of the repeated sections, and in the ideal case, transform or deepen the meaning of that same content each time we hear it” (Lyric Writing V. Poetry). This is saying that the use of repetition, in either case,…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    a noiseless patient spider
    • 3455 Words
    • 14 Pages

    a noiseless patient spider

    Walt Whitman describes a spider beginning to work on its web. It’s doing the trickiest, most uncertain part of the job: trying to lay down the first line. It’s shooting out lots of little strings, trying to get one of them to stick to something. Then, to let you know that this poem isn’t just about a spider, the speaker tells us that this is a metaphor for the soul, which also explores and tries to connect.…

    • 3455 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    billy collins explication
    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page

    billy collins explication

    In first stanza the poem is compared to a color slide. It shows that readers have to have to squint really hard to not miss any figurative language and to look at the poem clearly. In the second stanza its being compared to a hive which shows that its difficult to understand a poem but you can still do it despite the difficulties. In the fourth stanza the poem is being compared to a maze. Which gives the imagery of it being confusing and a feeling of being lost. In the fifth stanza Billy Collins explains how he wants his student to understand and have fun with the poem. He says “I want them to waterski across the surface of the poem.”…

    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Bogeyman Poem Analysis
    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Bogeyman Poem Analysis

    Repetition is used to send fear to the readers by getting the point across and also creating a pattern within the poem. Repetition is the act of repeating a word or phrase to emphasize its meanings. In the poem, Prelutsky repeats ,“He's waiting . . . just waiting . . . to get you,” (4) because he wants his readers to feel frightened of the beast and to make the audience feel targeted. The author wants the reader to know that the Bogeyman is out to get them and repeating the phrase more than once will make it stuck in the audience’s head. When repeating a phrase more than once, contrasting ideas are derogated and leave the audience’s mind. Therefore, the readers will not have any optimistic thoughts, and fear of the Bogeyman will be the only emotion they will experience. Since Prelutsky includes the same phrase at the end of each stanza, creating a pattern within the poem. A pattern helps make the poem flow smoothly and gives hint to the audience of what the next line might be. When using repetition to create pattern, a sudden change in the poem will stand out more to the readers. Prelutsky disrupts the pattern when the last line of his stanza states, “What he'll do . . . when he gets you!” (16). The change in repetition will be…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics