Audubon: A Vision

by Robert Penn Warren

In a 1969 interview with Richard Sale, Robert Penn Warren describes his intentions in writing Audubon: A Vision: "I just finished a long poem, Audubon: A Vision. It's about Audubon's life as a kind of focus for a lot of things about humans. I hope it's the way life is. It's about his heroic solution of his problems and the problems of being a man."(1) Warren elaborates on what attracted him to Audubon in a later interview with Peter Stitt, saying, "I began to see him as a certain kind of man, a man who has finally learned to accept his fate. The poem is about man and his fate - all along, Audubon resisted his fate and thought it was evil man is supposed to support his family, and so forth. But now he accepts his fate" (Talking p. 244).

Critics generally seem to agree that Audubon: A Vision is a watershed moment in Warren's career as a poet. Calvin Bedient goes so far as to say that Warren's "greatness as a writer ... began with Audubon: A Vision."(2) Much of the critical attention has focused on the poem's sources and influences, with a number of critics drawing parallels between the poem and Eudora Welty's portrayal of Audubon in her short story "A Still Moment."(3) But a number of critics have also observed the poem's mythological or archetypal qualities. In an early review, Louis Martz claims that in the poem Warren, "like Aeschylus or Ovid, is re-imagining a myth."(4) Hugh Ruppersburg concurs, stating that the poem "seeks to define Audubon's mythic significance in history and literature."(5) In any case, reviewers and critics alike see the work as the culmination and embodiment of all of Warren's major concerns and themes. ...

(Anthony Szczesiul)

Genres: Poetry, Nature

35 pages, Hardcover

First published November 12, 1969

About the author

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

Reviews

[Drew Norwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poem about the life and passion (“for what is man but his passion?”) of John James Audubon. The poem concludes with one of RPW’s best known lines:

“Tell me a story.
In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.
Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.
The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.
Tell me a story of deep delight.”

[Dave Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his long poem," Audubon: A Vision," Robert Penn Warren locates humans within a larger naturalistic context, and gives evidence to the ruination imposed by the arrow of time. The author seems to identify himself with the poem’s narrator, and explicitly relates to John James Audubon, the poem’s protagonist. Early in the poem, Warren has Audubon contemplating the thin veneer between himself and the world, a thought that that manifests itself in Warren’s and Audubon’s quests for a return to a more natural world. The structure of the poem, conveys a sense of cosmic interminability, and employs lyric and narrative sequences to reflect a debt to naturalistic writers.

Shortly after he was named Poet laureate, I remember Warren that complained to a journalist about an admiral who had the temerity to ask him for a poem that could be read at the christening of a ship. To Warren, such uses of poetry were a corruption of the poet's voice. Unfortunately, "Audubon," despite a few elegant lyrics does not conform to the standard this reader expects from Warren's voice.

[Lauren Rhoades · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in conjunction with Eudora Welty's story "A Still Moment," which also features Audubon during an imagined encounter with outlaw James Murrell and evangelist Lorenzo Dow in the Natchez wilderness. Penn Warren's collection was unexpectedly full of violence--violence which I assume the real Audubon must have encountered on his journey. I loved the imagery of nature:

"Saw,/ Eastward and over the cypress swamp, the dawn,/ Redder than meat, break;/ And the large bird,/ Long neck outthrust, wings crooked to scull the air, moved/ In a slow calligraphy, crank, flat, and black against/ The color of God's blood spilt, as though/ Pulled by a string."

The collection of 7 poems was a breeze to read--a modest little book. I don't think I would have appreciated the poems as much were it not for having read "A Still Moment" first.

[Cliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warren is a master. This poem is wonderfully vivid. It is useful to know that John Audubon was suspected of being a lost French dauphine - he was not - as the poem begins, 'twas not the lost dauphine.'
I have read two of his novels, Night Rider, and All the King's Men. I don't think I've ever read anything more beautifully composed. Breathtaking command of his craft! Read him.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have always been drown to creative writing like this. The story flows, unimpeded by structure. It allows the reader to more easily construct their own imagery.

Unfortunately This didn't work well for me. I felt that many metaphors were poor.

[Mert · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 Stars (%72/100)

Robert Penn Warren’s Audubon: A Vision is a haunting, lyrical meditation on nature, mortality, and the human drive to capture fleeting beauty, inspired by the life and work of John James Audubon. Warren’s rich, musical language and philosophical depth give the poem a timeless, almost mythic quality, blending historical reflection with personal introspection. Though its density and complexity may demand patience from the reader, the reward is a powerful, resonant work that lingers in both mind and heart.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

every one of them, memorable. a treasure.