Understanding Robert Penn Warren

The literary achievements of the country's first poet laureateUnderstanding Robert Penn Warren offers a comprehensive introduction to and commentary on the fiction, poetry, and drama of one of the twentieth century's most versatile writers and the first author to be honored as U.S. poet laureate. In this volume James A. Grimshaw, Jr., describes Warren's search for meaning in life and for a connection between self and others. Grimshaw examines the writer's views about the primacy of self-knowledge and explores the painful and arduous path his protagonists must follow to gain such knowledge and the interrelationship of his artistic endeavors, which were woven together by common thematic concerns -- history, time, truth, responsibility, love, hope, and endurance.Grimshaw presents an overview of Warren's life and his literary criticism, the latter offering a lens through which readers can gain a better understanding of Warren's fiction, poetry, and drama. In addition to providing thorough readings of Warren's fiction and poetry, Grimshaw explores Warren's little-examined contributions as a playwright. Grimshaw renders a fresh perspective on Warren's plays as he points out the profound influence of William Shakespeare, the impact of such nineteenth-century authors as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Hardy, and Warren's connection to such twentieth-century writers as T. S. Eliot and John Crowe Ransom.Underscoring the poet laureate's extensive achievements in the realm of letters, Grimshaw discusses Warren's focus on the universal concerns of society. While proposing that Warren comes as close as any writer of his generation to presenting a synoptic view of the human condition, Grimshaw draws primary attention to Warren's storytelling ability -- a talent he rates as Warren's greatest legacy.