ENAM3520. Poe, Whitman, Dickinson. The course will study in great detail the work of these three pivotal figures in the history of American poetry and poetics.  We will read extensively in their poetry as well as their prose, the latter including letters, theoretical writings, cultural commentaries.  Because the relation of their work to their cultural and historical circumstances will give a persistent focus to the course, we will study the changes their works undergo -- changes driven by their own purposes as well as the purposes that different readers bring to the work over the course of its reception.