Read the following excerpt from Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider” and answer the question. 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.

One technique a poet writing free verse may use to create a sense of rhythm is repetition. Which of the following are examples of repetition in the above excerpt?

Select all that apply.

filament
mark’d
spider
ever
explore

1.   in sonnet 18, the speaker wants to describe the beauty of his love, but can’t find the words to do so. the speaker says “then in mid-utterance the lay was lost” when he tries to think of the words to describe his love’s beauty.   through his defeat of finding words to describe his love, he shows his love for her.

2.   instead of describing how perfect his love is or comparing her to other beautiful things, he says she is average and there is nothing special about her.   at the last 2 lines of the poem, the volta changes the poem by saying that even though his love is average in beauty, his love for her is special and unique. so instead of praising her throughout the whole poem, he contrasts her average characteristics with his special love for her.

3.   the beloved asked the speaker to describe how he feels about her. she begins to describe what she feels but "drop the torch" and says that she can't do it because the words "hid in me out of reach." the the speaker says "nay, let the silence of my womanhood command my woman-love to thy belief" and that her silence will have to be the answer to his question.

"valley of salt tears" and "dark, deep and foggy" are two images used to establish a mood of uncertainty and regret. this imagery is made up of sensory appeals to brings up   theological concerns of sin and retribution.

they conjure up the human   uncertainty about the divine and its relationship to the world.