ROBERT PENN WARREN’S ENCOUNTER WITH
THOMAS JEFFERSON IN BROTHER TO DRAGONS
a
Steven D. Ealy
Senior Fellow, Liberty Fund, Inc.
Time, history, poetry, and identity are intertwined in the thought and
writings of Robert Penn Warren. These interconnections are famously
encapsulated in Warren’s foreword to Brother to Dragons: “If poetry is the little
myth we make, history is the big myth we live.”
1
These concerns are found in three of Warren’s long poems, Brother to
Dragons, Audubon: A Vision,
2
and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.
3
These poems,
for all of their differences in theme and style, share certain characteristics that
this paper will highlight. 1) Each poem has, as its title character, an archetypal
American. In the case of Brother to Dragons, that character is Thomas Jefferson,
author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious
Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. (BD I, p. 2) “Audubon” is Jean
Jacques, or John James, remembered chiefly for his Birds of America. Chief
Joseph was one of the leaders of the “non-treaty Nez Perce” who led his tribe
from their traditional home in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon Territory on a
thousand mile trek to freedom headed for Canada, only to be captured by the US
Cavalry within 50 miles of the Canadian border, and who came to symbolize the
Nez Perce struggle in the popular mind. 2) Each poem features the layering of
time, with aspects of the contemporary American landscape or map overlaying
that of the earlier period. 3) Each poem includes among its cast of characters the
author of the poem, Robert Penn Warren, who either interacts with or reflects on
the poem’s title figure. 4) Each poem contains a meditation on history, identity,
and time.
In this paper I will discuss Brother to Dragons, a poem in which Warren
(“R.P.W.) interrogates Thomas Jefferson about his understanding of human
nature. In the conclusion I draw together parallels between all three poems.
Brother to Dragons
4
This poem occupied, or preoccupied, Warren for over two decades.
Brother to Dragons, “A Tale in Verse and Voices,” was originally published in
book form in 1953. As Warren makes clear in a prefatory note, it is “a dialogue
spoken by characters, but it is not a play.” (BD, 1953, p. xiii) In 1979, “a new
version,”
5
considerably tightened, was published. In this version Warren
reiterates even more strongly than in the original that the poem is not a play. (BD
a
Prepared for delivery on the panel “Founding Principles in American Literature” at the Southwestern
Political Science Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, March 23-26, 2005.
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