Three American Poets

In Three American Poets , William C. Spengemann describes the very different sorts of poetry Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville wrote, their comparable reasons for writing as they did, and the posthumous critical effects of their having done so. By linking these utterly singular poets and their work—verse connected by shared qualities of oddity, complexity, and difficulty—Spengemann illuminates the poets' efforts to create verse equal to the demands of a changing nineteenth century. All three resp