Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)

A selective list of online literary criticism on the American poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association Guidelines for Web Pages

main page | 20th-century literature | 20th-century fiction | 20th-century poetry | formalist poets

Introduction

Robert Penn Warren. An introduction and excerpts of influential critical commentary on "Heart of Autumn," "Evening Hawk," and "Bearded Oaks." A biography. Modern American Poetry. Eds. Edward Brunner and Cary Nelson.

A very short biography of Robert Penn Warren from the Academy of American Poets. Also "A Brief Guide to the Fugitives" [Robert Penn Warren, Alan Tate, John Crowe Ransom].

A succinct summary of modern American poetry discusses Warren's importance. Academy of American Poets.

Donohue, Cecelia. "Robert Penn Warren." 21 March 2002. Literary Encyclopedia. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. An introduction to Robert Penn Warren, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription. On All the King's Men (1946).

Interview with Robert Penn Warren, by Eugene Walter Paris Review 16 (Spring-Summer 1957).

Literary criticism

Albin, C.D. "'Figured in Kinship': Rock, hawk, and dream in Warren's 'Kentucky Mountain Farm' and Brother to Dragons," Style Summer 2002.

Beck, Charlotte. "Robert Penn Warren and the poetics of purity." "Robert Penn Warren's attacks on the notion of pure poetry began in his earliest critical writings but came into focus during the 1940s..." Style Summer 2002.

Berger, Aimee. "The aesthetics of absence and the scopophilic text: Robert Penn Warren's Meet Me in the Green Glen." Style Summer 2002.

Blotner, Joseph. A review of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography, Insight on the News, 4/28/97 by Rex Roberts. Another review, National Review, 4/21/97 by Jeffrey Hart, who writes, "The appearance now of solid biographies of Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks testifies to the continuing importance of both."

Brinkmeyer, Robert H., ed. Strategies for teaching Robert Penn Warren's poetry, Heath Anthology.

Burris, Sidney. "Mega-processors, advanced peripherals, and Robert Penn Warren's Audubon." Studies in the Literary Imagination Spring 2002.

Burt, John. Warren reflects on his poetic career and its discontinuities. Style Summer 2002.

Clark, William Bedford, ed. A review of Selected Letters of Robert Penn Warren, Volume One: The Apprentice Years, 1924--1934. (Louisiana State U). Reviewed by Karen Werner in Southern Quarterly Fall 2002.

Clark, William Bedford, and Robert Drake. "Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism." Mississippi Quarterly Winter 1996.

Ealy, Steven D. "Corruption and innocence in Robert Penn Warren's fiction." Modern Age Spring 2005.

Ferriss, Lucy. "Introduction: the aesthetics of Robert Penn Warren." Style Summer 2002.

McCarron, Bill. "Warren's recondite vocabulary." "Robert Penn Warren has a propensity for including highly unusual words in his poetry." Style Summer 2002.

Mitchell, Mark T. "Theological reflections on Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men." Modern Age Fall 2006.

Myers, D.G. "Robert Penn Warren and the History of Criticism." Midwest Quarterly 34 (Summer 1993).

Prestridge, Sam. "Walking so his feet don't touch the ground: Robert Penn Warren, the regional motive, and 'Kentucky Mountain Farm.'" Style Summer 2002.

Rio, David. "Two worlds, one story: The American south and southern Europe in Robert Penn Warren's fiction." Studies in the Literary Imagination Spring 2002.

Runyon, Randolph Paul. "Warren's poetics of sequence: the case of 'Island of Summer'" On "Island of Summer," the sequence of fifteen poems that forms the first part of Warren's Incarnations: Poems 1966-1968. Style Summer 2002.

Szczesiul, Anthony. "The conservative aesthetic of Warren's early poetry," Style Summer 2002.

Van Dyke, John C. "'A critical sense worthy of respect': John Marston and the early poetics of Robert Penn Warren." Style Summer 2002.

A secondary bibliography for Robert Penn Warren from A Checklist of Scholarship on Southern Literature.

main page | 20th-century literature | 20th-century fiction | 20th-century poetry | formalist poets

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