Robert Penn Warren

News about Robert Penn Warren, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More

Robert Penn Warren, whose complex poetry and novels drawn from Southern life formed an intricate mirror of the human experience, was the nation's first Poet Laureate. He also won three Pulitzer Prizes, including one in 1947 for ''All the King's Men,'' a richly detailed study of the life and times of a populist politician named Willie Stark, who begins his career as a champion of the people but becomes corrupted by the power they vest in him. The character was inspired by the Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long.

Mr. Warren was also a respected critic and teacher who was on the faculties of Yale, Louisiana State University and the University of Minnesota, among others. Two textbooks he wrote began as pamphlets for his first classes and became widely used in colleges across the country.

After the publication of ''All the King's Men'' in 1946, Sinclair Lewis hailed Mr. Warren as ''the most talented writer of the South and one of the most important writers of the country.''