Robert Penn Warren: A Vision Earned.

1980 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 488 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Justus ◽  
Marshall Walker
Keyword(s):  
Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren: The Ballad of Billie Potts

Fabula ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam John Bisanz
Keyword(s):  
Robert Penn Warren

The Autonomy of Art and the Legitimization of Biofiction: An Aesthetic Turning Point in Twentieth-Century Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-369
Author(s):  
Michael Lackey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Robert Penn Warren ◽  
William Styron ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
One Year ◽  
Century Literature

Abstract Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after a historical figure, and since the 1990s it has become one of the most dominant literary forms. This is surprising because many prominent scholars, critics, and writers have criticized and even condemned it. This essay hypothesizes that postmodern theories of truth and concomitant transformations in reader sensibilities partly account for the legitimization and now dominance of biofiction. The essay analyzes a 1968 literary debate among Ralph Ellison, William Styron, and Robert Penn Warren, which on the surface concerned the uses of history in literature. But because it happened just one year after the publication of Styron’s controversial novel about Nat Turner, the debate ended up focusing primarily on the nature and value of biofiction. By analyzing the discussion in relation to contemporary formulations about and theorizations of biofiction, this essay illustrates why the forum represents a turning point in literary history, resulting in the decline of a traditional type of literary symbol and the rise of a more anchored and empirical symbol—that is, the type of symbol found in biofiction.

Warren, Robert Penn (1905–1989)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Master's Degree ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
New Criticism ◽  
Robert Penn Warren ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Allen Tate ◽  
John Crowe Ransom ◽  
The University ◽  
Vanderbilt University

Robert Penn Warren was a renowned poet, novelist, critic and educator. He matriculated to Vanderbilt University in 1921, where, with Allen Tate (1899–1979) and John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974), he became part of The Fugitives, a group of poets named for the journal they published. Warren earned a master’s degree at the University of California and accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to study at New College, Oxford University. Here, he began to pursue the close readings of literary texts that eventually became associated with New Criticism: a focus on the text itself without reference to the biography of the writer or the historical circumstances of the text’s composition or reception.

Southern Agrarians

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny LeRoy
Keyword(s):  
American South ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
The South ◽  
Robert Penn Warren ◽  
The American South ◽  
John Crowe Ransom

The Southern Agrarians were twelve writers from the American South who advocated a return to an agrarian-based economy throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In their 1930 collection of essays I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition, John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974), Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) and others attacked the system of modern industrial capitalism and its effect on the traditional way of Southern life.

scholarly journals Hemingway’s Desolation Laid Bare, Perhaps

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Raymond J Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
The Other ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Robert Penn Warren ◽  
Literary Style ◽  
Natural Development ◽  
Violent Action

“A Clean, Well-lighted Place,” was first published in Scribner’s Magazine, in 1933, and ever since has been a significant focus of the literary world, with few daring to risk their literary aspirations, in rebuttal of previously published assertions as the dark forebodings of a world bereft of faith or joy. One is left to ponder a literary profession that appears bereft of a critical examination of the work, or, may not being able to see the forest for the trees. Responding to the assertion by Robert Penn Warren, that Hemingway lived in a “world of violent action,” WB Bache preferred to see the writer as a representative of unique craft and insight, and that he should be seen as, “a creative artist.” This is why I too, found Hemingway an enigma, as someone with a unique literary style, but possessing too, a wicked side. In his art, as he was in life, a hard drinking, womanizing, errant joker, who I feel certain here, is having a laugh at us all, from the other side. Sam Bluefarb (1971) wrote of the “Need to break through to some transcendent purpose—esthetic or religious—without which life seems to have little or no meaning.” Indeed, the melancholia which pervades this literary offering drags the reader down, into its darkness and despair, its depths of the maudlin, the mundane. The pathos may be evident, but does the meaning of the story have to be so dark, and so bitter? The “illogical dialogue sequence,” Warren Bennett (1990) ascribed to the tale, appears to be too bad, too lacking substance, too illogical for words, and so devoid of natural development that it takes on an artificiality such that it could only be a frolic that Hemingway is having, at our expense. Hemingway was a disciple of misogyny, this brute found love so often, not with docile, “pleasant”, or amenable women, but independent, vibrant, aggressive, articulate, intelligent, and yes, “feisty.” None of them was just a decoration, all were treated abysmally, and yet they all loved him till they had no more love left to give, until he had drained them of their capacity to continue to love him. These relationships open the door to a less discussed possibility, that “A Clean Well-lighted Place,” was actually a metaphoric celebration of femininity, in praise of womanhood, an explanation of the clean illumination of our lives (places), without whom, we are dark and dull, and lifeless, much like the iconic short story.

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