Brother to Dragons

By Robert Penn Warren

Book Overview

"This is Robert Penn Warren's best book. . . . Cruel sometimes, crude sometimes, obsessed sometimes, the book is always extraordinary: it does know, and knows sadly and tenderly, even. It is, in short, an event, a great one."-Randall Jarrell, New York Times Book Review The significantly revised version of Brother to Dragons appeared in 1979, twenty-six years after the original. It is, Warren wrote, "in some important senses, a new work." Told in the distinct voices of characters long dead and now gathered at an unspecified place and time, this long poem recalls events leading to and resulting from the 1811 murder of a young slave by Thomas Jefferson's nephew. "R.P.W." is the narrator of the tale, whose poignant ending brings not only reconciliation among the ghostly figures but healing for Warren's persona as well.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394403126
• ISBN13: 9780394403120
• Release Date: August 1953
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Marvelous blend of history and artistry

In Brother to Dragons, Robert Penn Warren, former poet laureate and twice winner of the Pulitzer, combined the historical elements of the New Madrid earthquake and the murder of a slave by two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews with his love of poetry. This book has various "voices" relating the brutal events in verse, but history is only a vehicle for exploring the nature of evil and Jefferson's dream of the perfectability of mankind.This is a marvelous rather experimental volume; it is both novel, play, and poem. It is grim; it is disturbing; it is absolutely wonderful. I highly recommend this work.