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Robert Penn Warren
(1905-1989)

Active: 1925-1985 in USA, North America

By Cecilia Donohue (Madonna University)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: USA, North America
  • Born In: USA, North America
  • Activity: Novelist, Poet, Scholar, Teacher, Biographer, Editor, Story Writer, Literary Critic, Essayist, Cultural Critic

Life, Works and Times

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Born on April 24th, 1905 in Guthrie, Kentucky to Robert Franklin and Anna Ruth Penn Warren, Robert Penn Warren distinguished himself over seven decades in multiple genres: full-length fiction, the short story, poetry, literary criticism, and the sociohistoric essay. As the oldest child of well-read parents, Robert Penn Warren excelled as an elementary and high school student, skipping three grades along the way. An accidental yet serious injury to his left eye forced the sixteen-year-old Robert to abandon hopes of attending the United States Naval Academy. Instead, he chose to major in chemistry at Vanderbilt University, and enrolled there for the fall 1921 term. Soon disillusioned with the curriculum in this subject, he flour

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First published 21 March 2002

Citation: Donohue, Cecilia. "Robert Penn Warren". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4927, accessed 9 February 2010.]

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