ROBERT PENN WARREN
by George Brosi
No Kentucky author comes close to being as distinguished as Robert Penn Warren. Indeed, few American writers do! He served as the very first Poet Laureate of the United States of America and he remains the only writer ever to have received Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry. In fact, he received two Pulitzers in poetry for two different books! His writing about literary criticism in general and his responses to particular writers--especially William Faulkner and Katherine Anne Porter-- are as influential as any in this century. Mary Ellen Miller is not exaggerating when he writes in The Kentucky Encyclopedia that Warren is "one of the most distinguished scholar-writers America has produced.
Warren was born on April 24, 1905, in Guthrie, Kentucky. When he was a
small boy, the Black Patch Tobacco Wars broke out centered around his home
town, transforming previously exemplary citizens into violent fanatics. As a
student at Vanderbilt University, he was caught up in debates about the role of
the South in an industrializing America, and about the role of literature in
society. During his junior year he was invited to attend the weekly
discussions of "the fugitives," one of the most influential groups in American
literary history. One faculty participant, Allen Tate, a native of Winchester,
Kentucky, spoke of Warren, then known to friends as "Red," in a letter to
Donald Davidson, a leader of the group, "that boy's a wonder--has more genius
than any of us; watch him: his work...will have what none of us can
achieve--power" (Cowan 150). Warren graduated, summa cum laude, from
Vanderbilt University in 1925 the year that Tennesseans took sides on the
Scopes Trial at the Rhea County Courthouse. He traveled to the University of
California at Berkeley to obtain his Masters in English, then pursued doctoral
studies briefly at Yale where he was named a Rhodes Scholar enabling him to
finish his B. Litt. at Oxford University in England in 1930. That same year he
married Emma Brescia who he divorced in 1951. From England, Warren mailed an
essay, "The Briar Patch," to his Vanderbilt mentors which was included in their
manifesto of Southern Literary Agrarianism, I'll Take My Stand.
Warren began his teaching career at Louisiana State University in 1934.
There he collaborated with Cleanth Brooks, a native of Murray, Kentucky, not
far from Guthrie, who had also been a part of the Vanderbilt Fugitives. Their
text books and the publication they founded and directed, The Southern
Review, were tremendously influential in literary circles. However,
Warren's first novel and first poetry collections attracted little notice. In
1942 Warren accepted a teaching job at the University of Minnesota where he
remained until 1951. It was during this time that Warren not only consolidated
his reputation as a leading literary critic, but became successful as a
novelist. All The King's Men, a novel based upon the career of the
Louisiana demagogue, Huey Long, was published in 1946. It achieved great
popularity and was also won critical praise. It won the Pulitzer Prize in
fiction for that year.
In 1951, Warren was hired to teach at Yale University. That same year he
married Eleanor Clark. They became the parents of two children and lived,
briefly, in Italy on a fellowship. During this period, Warren turned back to
poetry while continuing to write novels, criticism, texts, and essays. Critics
agree that Warren in one of those rare poets whose work became more and more
powerful with time. His first Pulitzer Prize in poetry was awarded for
Promises: Poems, 1954-1956. It was followed in 1978 by another Pulitzer
for Now and Then: Poems, 1976-1978, which appeared after his retirement
from Yale in 1973. Throughout his 70s, Warren's work continued with vigor, and
it was only as he entered his 80s that his powers appeared diminished. He died
on September 15, 1989.
Speaking of Warren's fiction, William Ward writes in A Literary History
of Kentucky, "The range is great: there is the Warren of beauty, and the
Warren of sentiment and gentleness and love; the Warren of coarse comedy and
explicit earthy shock, of shimmering gossamer and of sudden explosiveness and
violence." But perhaps more impressive is the depth of Warren's writing.
Warren had a way of perceiving history which brought out the universal in the
particular and focused on the intersections between individual and collective
experience. His characters struggled for their own identities within the
confines of historical forces which mirrored impulses within themselves.
Warren's characters lived in a world replete with evil as well as good and had
to come to grips with their own sinful natures. The writings of Robert Penn
Warren are impressive and stimulating, but never have moved masses of readers.
Nevertheless, as an intellectual in the field of English, Warren was clearly a
man who could do it all.
Works Cited
Cowan, Louise. The Fugitive Group: A Literary History. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1959.
Miller, Mary Ellen. "Warren, Robert Penn." in Kleber, John, ed. The
Kentucky
Encyclopedia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992. 932.
Ward, William S. A Literary History of Kentucky. Knoxville: The
University
of Tennessee Press, 1988.
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A Bibliography of Robert Penn Warren
by George Brosi
John Brown: The Making of a Martyr. New York: Payson & Clark, 1929.
A
biographical sketch and essay on the fanatic abolitionist who helped spark the
American Civil War.
Thirty-six Poems. 1935.
and Cleanth Brooks. An Approach to Literature. New York: Appleton,
Century,
Crofts, 1936. A university-level text.
ed. A Southern Harvest: Short Stories by Southern Authors. Boston:
Houghton,
Mifflin, 1937.
and Cleanth Brooks. Understanding Poetry. New York: Henry Holt, 1938.
One of
the most influential texts on understanding poetry ever published, this book
helped to lead to the widespread adoption of "New Criticism" techniques on
campus across America.
Night Rider. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1939. Warren's first novel,
this book
dealt with the Black Patch Tobacco Wars which centered around Warren's home
town of Guthrie, Kentucky, when he was a mere toddler. Here for the first
time, Warren uses characters caught up in significant historical events to
explores themes of identity and estrangement from the land.
Eight Poems on the Same Theme. Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions,
1942.
A Heaven's Gate. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943. In this, Warren's
second
novel, he first uses one of his most effective fictional devices, the narration
of the story by an observing character, to tell the story. In this case it is
the football hero, Jerry Calhoun, who temporarily gets caught up in the empire
of a wheeler-dealer (based on Tennessee Senator Luke Lea) named Bogan Murdock.
Significantly, Calhoun, at the end of the book, chooses to leave the fast lane
and return to the small farm where he was raised.
and Cleanth Brooks. Understanding Fiction. New York: F. S. Crofts,
1943. An
attempt to follow-up on the success of Understanding Poetry in the
academic market.
Selected Poems: 1923-1943. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944. Here
first
appeared one of Warren's best known poems, "The Ballad of Billie Potts," which
tells the story of a prodigal son who returns incognito to the den of thieves
where he was raised only to be murdered by his own father. This poem is based
on an historical happening in Kentucky's "Land Between the Rivers," now thanks
to TVA, the "Land Between the Lakes."
All the King's Men. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946. This remains
Warren's
most well-known work. It won him his first Pulitzer Prize. Based on the
career of Huey Long, the charismatic demagogue from Louisiana, it explores
themes of urbanization and identity. Both a popular and critical success.
Blackberry Winter: A Story. Cummington, Ma: Cummington Press, 1946.
Warren's
best-known short story, a coming-of-age story about a nine year old boy whose
seemingly insignificant break with familial authority ushers in a floodtide of
first recognitions of evil in the world.
The Circus in the Attic and Other Stories. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1948.
Warren's only collection of stories, includes "Blackberry Winter."
and Cleanth Brooks. Fundamentals of Good Writing. New York: Harcourt,
Brace,
1950. Another text.
World Enough and Time. New York: Random House, 1950. A novel based
upon "The
Kentucky Tragedy," an historical incident involving a prominent attorney who
sought out a girl seduced by the state's Solicitor General. He brazenly kills
the official who wronged her. When she requests a double-suicide, she is
killed and he survives only to be hung the next day. Most critics agree that
one of the central issues of Warren's novel is the importance of accepting
personal responsibility for actions taken.
Brother to Dragons. New York: Random House, 1953. A narrative poem
concerned
with the basic question of the juxtaposition of good and evil as evidenced by a
gruesome murder perpetuated by Thomas Jefferson's nephews which coincided in
time and place with the dramatic New Madrid Earthquake in Western Kentucky.
ed. Short Story Masterpieces. New York: Dell, 1954. An
international
selection of short stories for use as a college text.
Band of Angels. New York: Random House, 1955. Another novel centering
around
questions of identity and industrialization in a historical context which
maximizes impact. Here the daughter of an ante-bellum plantation owner learns,
upon her father's death, that her mother was a slave and so she is also.
Amantha Starr is thus faced with the necessity to quit being a college student
up North in order to be sold as part of her father's estate!
Promises: Poems: 1954-1956. New York, Random House, 1957. This is the
book
which won Warren a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and made him the first, and still
the only, recipient of Pulitzers for both fiction and poetry! It contrasts his
own youth with the youths of his children.
Selected Essays. New York, Random House, 1958.
and Cleanth Brooks. Modern Rhetoric. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1958.
Remember the Alamo. New York: Random House, 1958. A historical
essay.
The Cave. New York: Random House, 1959. An historical novel based on
the
famous Floyd Collins case. Collins was trapped in a cave in Western Kentucky
for eighteen days before he died. As rescuers works tirelessly, on-lookers and
entrepreneurs gathered creating an almost circus-like atmosphere.
The Gods of Mount Olympus. New York: Random House, 1959. A book for
children
on the Greek Gods.
and Cleanth Brooks. The Scope of Fiction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice
Hall, 1960.
The Legacy of the Civil War: Meditations on the Centennial. New York:
Random
House, 1961. Non-fiction.
Wilderness: A Tale of the Civil War. New York: Random House, 1961. The
story
of a Bavarian Jew, liberated by the European Revolutions of 1848, who
emigrates to the United States to participate in the struggle to free the
slaves. It deals with issues of freedom and identity in the context of
history.
You, Emperors and Others. New York: Random House, 1961. Poetry.
Flood: A Romance of Our Time. New York: Random House, 1964. A novel.
Who Speaks for the Negro? New York: Random House, 1965. Non-fiction.
ed. Faulkner: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice
Hall, 1966.
Selected Poems: New and Old: 1923-1966. New York: Random House, 1966.
Randall Jarrell, 1914-1965. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
1967. An
essay in celebration of a leading literary critic of Warren's time.
Incarnations: Poems, 1966-1968. New York: Random House, 1968.
Audubon: A Vision. New York: Random House, 1969. Poetry based upon the
life
and vision of John Jacob Audubon, the Kentucky naturalist.
ed, Selected Poems of Herman Melville. New York: Random House, 1970.
Homage to Theodore Dreiser at the Centennial of His Birth. New York:
Random
House, 1971.
John Greenlief Whittier's Poetry: An Appraisal and a Selection.
Minneapolis:
The University of Minnesota Press, 1971.
Meet Me in the Green Glen. New York: Random House, 1971. Another
novel.
Or Else--Poem/Poems. New York: Random House, 1974.
Democracy and Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.
An
essay.
A Time to Hear and Listen: Essays for the Bicentennial Season.
Tuscaloosa,
Al: University of Alabama Press, 1976.
A Place to Come To. New York: Random House, 1977. A novel.
Now and Then: Poems, 1976-1978. New York: Random House, 1978. The book
of
poetry which won Warren his third Pulitzer Prize.
ed. Katherine Anne Porter: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979.
Being Here: Poetry, 1977-1980. New York: Random House, 1980.
Rumor Verified: Poems, 1979-1980. New York: Random House, 1981.
"The title...suggests that no one can escape the limitations of the human
condition" (Ward 282).
Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back. Lexington, KY: University
Press of
Kentucky, 1980.
Robert Penn Warren Talking: Interviews, 1950-1978. New York, Random
House,
1980.
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce: A Poem. New York: Random House, 1983.
New and Selected Poems, 1923-1985. New York: Random House, 1985.
A Robert Penn Warren Reader. New York, Random House, 1987.
Portrait of a Father. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky,
1988. A
biographical sketch of Warren's father.
Talking With Robert Penn Warren. Athens, Ga: University of Georgia
Press,
1990. A transcription of interviews.
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