Robert Penn Warren’s Novels: Feminine and Feminist Discourse

In presenting an innovative and timely analysis of the novels of one of America’s foremost modernists, the author draws on theories of women’s speech, voice, and self-realization to illuminate Robert Penn Warren’s awareness of gender differences in language and psychological development. This book’s joint focus on dialogue contents and motivation of women characters reveals Warren’s understanding of and sensitivity to women’s ways of speaking and self-actualizing. By reinterpreting these works in the context of postmodernism and feminist criticism, this study argues for a reassessment of Warren’s fiction along more contemporary lines.