Journal #35 Square Deity

In this poem Whitman uses many of his common poem writing characteristics. He makes many references to the bible and mythology. He mentions Greek gods such as heroes. THe first verse is being used to reference the old testament God, which is a vengeful God. The second verse references the New Testament God, which is a more forgiving God. This is in order to show that if you believe in the good God, you must also believe in the Devil as well. This shows both sides of the table so to speak, God is good on one side. The devil is evil on the other side. The Devil used to be an angel, but then was banished from Heaven by God for being disobedient. Whitman commonly enjoys messing with his readers and portraying both sides to a conflict or example. For instance, Im almost positive that he wrote this poem for the sole purpose that one day he knew i would have to analyse it... That is a problem for me because poetry is a bit of a weak point on my academic spear, which I use commonly in school, to ward off the foe that is school. Perhaps Whitman enjoys seeing me attempt to come up with something logical after reading his poem. But in all honesty I was able to comprehend the spanish story about the fox that played dead in the chicken coop more than this poem... I didn't even comprehend half of the words in that story either. Excellent... another nice job by me. Anyway, Whitman commonly portrays both sides of the spectrum in his poems. Such as how he described life and death as the planting of crops. Which was the life process, and then the harvesting process as death. In this case Whitman has references to both God and the Devil. Which takes me back to the Fox that played dead. The fox taught us a priceless lifer long lesson, that is, to tolerate that which we can bear, but if something is unbearable, then we need to banish it. WHitman, in essence, shows this same lesson. He could no longer bear having the devil in Heaven, so he banished him forever. A bold strategy if you ask me, because now they are enemies and the prospects for them becoming friends do not look good at all.