Robert Penn Warren Biography

Robert Penn Warren, distinguished scholar-writer, was born in Guthrie, Kentucky, on April 24, 1905. He attended public schools in Guthrie and Clarksville, Tennessee; graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University (1925); and received an M.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley (1927). He studied at Yale and enjoyed two years at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, subsequently earning the B.Litt. Degree at Oxford in 1930. While a student, Warren formed lasting friendships with other writers, participated in literary discussion groups and in the founding of a journal called The Fugitive, and became a member of the Agrarians, a social-political group that included John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson and Allen Tate.

From 1930 Warren held a succession of academic positions, at schools such as Southwestern College, Vanderbilt, and the University of Minnesota. While at Louisiana State University he co-founded (with Cleanth Brooks and Charles W. Pipkin) a critical quarterly The Southern Review in 1935. At Yale Warren held professorships in playwriting (1951-1956) and in English (1961-1973).

Warren achieved fame as a poet, novelist, essayist, critic and editor. His many awards included three Pulitzer Prizes: All the King's Men (Fiction, 1947), Promises (Poetry, 1958), and Now and Then (Poetry, 1979). In 1986 Robert Penn Warren was named as the first U. S. Poet Laureate, an honor confirming his stature as an outstanding poet. He received numerous other awards, honorary degrees and commendations, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award.

Warren and his wife, author Eleanor Clark, lived in Fairfield, Connecticut daughter Rosanna followed in her parents' footsteps as a scholar and writer. Son Gabriel is a sculptor.

Robert Penn Warren died on September 15, 1989.

For more information read:

	Blotner, Joseph. Robert Penn Warren: a Biography. New York: Random House, 1997.
	Grimshaw, James A., Jr. Robert Penn Warren: a Descriptive Bibliography, 1922-79. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981.