The Modern Age (Mid-20th Century)
In Warren’s poem “Infant Boy at Mid-Century” can be found an especially rich symbolic collision to describe the state of Western civilization by the 1950’s:
“You enter the age when the neurotic clock-tick
Of midnight competes with the heart’s pulsed assurance of power”
Just in case anyone might be having some difficulty figuring out where the speaker stands on the issue, be aware that anything described as “neurotic” back then was not generally something held in high esteem and at pretty much no time in history has midnight ever been a particularly positive symbol. In case that does not do the trick, here’s just a few ways the speaker goes on to comment upon his own symbolism of the modern age: ”scarcely the century’s finest hour” that is, in fact, “the hour when the dog returns to his vomit” and when Good and Evil are in the midst of holding a summit.
"The Gold Glade"
The titular topographical feature of this poem stands out as one of the poet’s finest uses of the natural world as a symbol of something greater. The poem starts out by describing a memory of these “woods of boyhead” which should instantly raise a blip on the reader’s radar that this poem is not just some literal recalling of walking through a glade. But then Warren goes on to deliver a poem steeped in quite literal descriptive imagery; little here is not something that could be seen and touched and smelled. At the same time, however, Warren creates ambiguity with constant references to boyhood, memories and imagination. The poem winds up creating a magnificently tangible symbol of the persistent beauty of the eternal; that glade will exist forever in his memory regardless of what the march of progress may do to destroy its brilliance.
Thomas Jefferson
Arguably, of course, Robert Penn Warren’s most complex and sophisticated symbol is the figure of Thomas Jefferson in a work of verse that is really much closer in frame and construction to a novel than a poem: Brother to Dragons. This long novel-in-verse recounts a footnote to American history in the tale of two nephews of Jefferson who murdered a slave. From this footnote—or, perhaps more accurately phrased, because this is a merely a footnote to history—Warren constructs from the murder and, more to the point, Jefferson’s lies of omission in glossing over its occurrence fifteen years before his death a potent symbol of the American myth that has been utterly reliant in ignoring if not necessarily denying unpleasantness connected to it by blood.
What is Love?
You think you might be able to answer this question with a fair amount of latitude of being right if the question is posed within the strict guidelines of what poets consider love to be. When you reach the final line of the section of verse dedicated to John James Audubon titled “Love and Knowledge,” however, you will inch a bit closer to understanding that when it comes to poets certainty about anything just does not apply. Here is one of the many symbols that Warren comes right out and makes (thankfully?) clear throughout his poetry.
“What is love?
Our name for it is knowledge.”
Although haters of poetry might enjoy Warren more than usual for his plainspoken way of telling you exactly what it is on his mind, this positive aspect comes at a price: Sure, he'll flat out tell you that love is a merely a symbol of knowledge, but as for explaining exactly what that is supposed to mean...readers are all on their own. (This is a good thing: it means you can almost absolutely avoid getting an "F" on a essay question that asks you to explain what the speaker means here. As long as you get within the ballpark, you'll pass!)
Caves
Caves are one of the most predominant symbols in the entire canon of Warren. In addition to appearing in many poems, the author also wrote a novel titled “The Cave.” The appearance of caves and caverns in poems as dissimilar as “Elijah on Mount Carmel,” “Rumor at Twilight,” and “Empty White Blotch on Map of Universe: A Possible View” as tie directly to one of Warren’s overarching themes: the importance of self-knowledge and self-reflection in the construction of self-identity.
