Poetry Criticism | Warren, Robert Penn - Andrew Zawacki (review date 1999)

Andrew Zawacki (review date 1999)

SOURCE: Zawacki, Andrew. “Retro Values, Radical Voice.” The Times Literary Supplement 350, no. 5011 (April 16, 1999): 30.

[In the following review of The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, Zawacki briefly encapsulates Warren's poetic accomplishments and his literary status at the end of the twentieth century.]

The problem of knowledge has defined the major poetries of the past century. While contemporary thought is witnessing so many catch-phrase exhaustions—the end of history, of ideology, of the aesthetic—Robert Penn Warren (1905-89) invigorated six decades with his investigations into the origins of knowledge and its erratic trajectory towards or away from a realization in truth. “What is love?” he asked in Audubon: A Vision (1969): “One name for it is knowledge.” Jean Jacques Audubon was Warren's most compelling avatar because of the legendary Dauphin's preoccupation...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass