E Pluribus Unum: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Constitutional Paradox

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 “Brotherhood among the Atoms” Edgar Allan Poe and the Poetics of Constitution 37 2 “A Religion Which Is No Religion” Walt Whitman and the Writing of a New American Bible 71 3 “But Aren’t It All a Sham?” Herman Melville and the Critique of Unity 111 4 “Necessarily Short of Sight” William James and the Dilemma of Variety 153 Afterword 195 Notes 209 Works Cited 289 Index 309 ...