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Acknowledgments I am very grateful to Allen Grossman, who first helped me envision thisprojectandsuggestedabeginning.Hisuncompromisingsupport, demands for precision, and generous investment of time and advice made this book possible, both in its earlier and present forms. I also wish to thank Larzer Ziff for reading these pages with characteristic astuteness and care, Sharon Harrow for expert guidance at a crucial juncture,Karen Sánchez-Eppler for nourishing my fledgling work on Whitman and sharing her energy and balance of humor and seriousness about teaching and literary studies, and John Irwin for his assistance with Poe. Johns Hopkins’s generous policy of funding two semestersofwriting,freeofteachingobligations,allowedthetimeand mental equilibrium to research and draft early versions of two chapters . Final stages of the research were made possible with the assistance of Gay Jones and Mary Mowrey, of Shippensburg University’s Lehman Library.Kirk Moll,reference librarian at Shippensburg,and Francis Campbell, librarian for the American Numismatic Society, came to the bibliographic rescue in an hour of need. For their helpful comments on draft chapters, I am indebted to Sharon Cameron,Abigail Cheever,Jack Kerkering,Alex Love,Chris Lukasik, Walter Michaels, Michael Moon, and John Plotz. For their generous conversation and advice in matters professional and otherwise , I thank Lin Askew, Flip and Kim Eikner, Dev Hathaway, Chris Nemec, Andy Saunders, Terry Shelton, and Curt Schmitt. Marsha Fausti helped me maintain sanity,focus,and a sense of humor during our graduate studies.Jennifer Limón,thespian coconspirator during myyearsinBaltimore,helpedinpreparinganearlydraft.Theunflagging support of my parents, Jeff and Judith Harris, along with the lasting friendship of Martha Wickelhaus and Kate von Goeler, has buoyed me through the many stages of the work. My greatest debt, however,istomypartner,KarlWoelz(whoalsohelpedmewithindexing ).His love,presence,and interest have allowed me to realize more than simply this project. Special thanks to the many individuals at University of Iowa Press withwhomithasbeenmypleasuretowork,especiallyPrasenjitGupta, Holly Carver, Charlotte Wright, and Sara Sauers. Their encouragementandgenerositymadeaseriesofdauntingtasksmoremanageable . I must also thank the readers for University of Iowa Press — Donald Pease and Peter Bellis — for their time and criticism. The precision and enthusiasm of copyeditor Jennifer Usher, of Mesa Verde Media Services,madeapossiblyintimidatingprocessnotsimplypainlessbut reassuring. Some portions of this book have been previously published.A version of chapter 1 appeared as “Edgar Allan Poe’s Eureka and the Poetics of Constitution” in American Literary History 12.1–2 (2000). Chapter 2 appeared, in slightly altered form, as two separate essays: “Whitman’sLeavesofGrassandtheWritingofaNewAmericanBible” in The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 16.3–4 (Winter/Spring 1999) and “Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and the Problem of the One and the Many”inArizonaQuarterly56.3(Autumn2000).Iamgratefulforpermission to reprint these sections and for the suggestions made by anonymous readers at these journals. x Acknowledgments ...

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