Reflection: "Chanting the Square Deific"

Whitman wanted to invent a style of poetry that everyone could relate to and this poem did a very good job of following that template. The only image that this poem creates is a square which is a symbol that almost anybody would recognize and know exactly what it is because it is a very common shape seen everywhere in day to day life. The main subject of the story is also about religion, which most Americans at this time were acquainted with. While not everyone would get the references to Hindu, Roman, and Greek mythology, they could still get the general message Whitman was trying to convey.

“Chanting the Square Deific” is a poem that creates a square in which each side is a part of Whitman’s signature “Self.” Each stanza outlines and identifies each side of the square. As the poem progresses, the sides are “filled in,” starting with the top and going clockwise. The sides, in order as they are presented in the poem, are God, Christ, Satan, and The Holy Spirit. Since it is a square, this order puts God and Satan on opposite sides which shows that Whitman believed that there was a “balance between good and evil, both necessary, he believed, in the lives of human beings and in all of Nature” (Oliver 5).

Although all of the sides of the square are supposed to be a part of the self, in the “Holy Spirit” stanza, the speaker of the poem claims that it is “including God, including Christ, including Satan” which shows that Whitman believed that the spirit was not only part of Self, it also included all of the other parts of Self within itself (Whitman 4). This is fairly contradictory, but so is the rest of the poem. Whitman portrays the soul as something that “contains contradictions and oxymorons “because the soul is “at once the most ethereal and most solid of the sides” (Huff 5). Although it may seem confusing, it is not altogether that different from the Christian belief that God was three separate parts (the Trinity) but also one being. In this case, Whitman portrays the Holy Spirit as the part of the “quaternity” that encompasses all of the other parts (Oliver 1). The Holy Spirit, and effect, Whitman’s characteristic “general spirit,” is “beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping easily above hell, Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with mine own perfume” (Whitman 4). In effect, the soul, and ultimately, the Self, is superior to anything or place because they are each contained within Self; Self is the highest authority. This may be why Whitman is so obsessed with trying to determine Self.

Whitman, Walt. "The Walt Whitman Archive." CHANTING THE SQUARE DEIFIC. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892]) -. Web. 26 Apr. 2012.


Huff, Randall. "'Chanting the Square Deific'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.


Oliver, Charles M. "'Chanting the Square Deific'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.