On Life-consciousness Of Robert Penn Warren's Animal Poems

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was, among the 20th century's American writers, distinguished as the figure of the Renaissance man. But the central thrust of Warren's literafy career lay in the field of poetry, for which he was esteemed as one of the greatest poets fully comparable to Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. Out of Warren's various and numerous poems, those on animals can be best understood when seen as a whole, for they are relatively close in thoughts and artistic style. In fact, Warren's life-consciousness forms doubtlessly the most important aspect of his animal poems.With his thoughts of essentiality of life, Warren discovers that the existence of animals embodies the essential characteristics of life, such as mystery and purity, sense of responsibility and mission committed, and innocence of evil and ability to recover. These characteristics help enrich the human's knowledge of self, enlighten and recover their virtues, and correct their crimes.With his thoughts of life cycle, Warren found that the death of animals demonstrates the characteristics of life cycle, thus death constitutes an indispensable phase for the accomplishment of life. Therefore, the death of animals reveals the essential characteristics of life from the negative. For the more, Warren reflected the human being's killing of animals and invasion to the nature, and suggests these wrongdoings committed by human beings lead to mutual tragic fates for both the human being and the animals. In his late poems, Warren went beyond the limit of Darwinism.This essay, mainly based on Warren's some twenty animal poems, and put in the background of Warren's seminal years and environments, and thoughts of his complete poem writings, indicates that Warren's animal poems, through the existence and death of animals, aims to demonstrate the essential characteristics and meanings of life, and is an exploration to life and artistic world, and builds up an important part of Warren's love-centered poetic career.