ROBERT PENN WARREN - A MAN OF PASSAGE

Robert Penn Warren is one of Southern Literature’s most prized authors. He was comfortable as a novelist, poet, critic, biographer, and social commentator. Many of his literary works examine the themes of passage, undiscovered self and mysticism. In the poem " Muted Music", Warren focuses on the passage theme. While this theme is common among modernist authors, few writers from any era possess the intrinsic talent that permeates Robert Penn Warren’s soul of words as he presents his ideas in the written form.

Often the persona of passage poetry is a child at the point of loosing its innocence or an adult mourning the loss of the purity found in the child-like heart. " Muted Music" invokes a different spin on the passage theme. The character, an older person, has dwelt many years in the darkness of lost innocence, and now has gained access to a time warp that ushers him back to that coveted past.

In the following few lines of poetry, Warren motivates his audience to look seriously at both the world surrounding the physical being and the universe within each person’s soul. By 1985, when " Muted Music" was first published, Warren had experienced 80 years of life and had gained a clear understanding of the passage theme which he so dearly loved to explore. With this poem, an instrumental fly provides the haggard persona with the harmony of mental movement toward balance. Achievement of a serene freedom emanates from experience. Experience ferments to a level of wisdom that proceeds from the movement of time.

It is intriguing that while his earlier passage poetry focused on the loss of innocence, this later poem served as a double-edged sword. While retaining the thesis of a traumatic passage from purity to corruption, Warren added a new dimension to his verse. This dimension turned the original thesis inside out, delving even deeper into the question that seemed to haunt him throughout his life. Can innocence be recovered once it is lost?

" Muted Music" strongly suggests an affirmative answer to this inquiry. However, paradoxically, the title insinuates the frequency with which the music goes unnoticed, i.e. the frequency with which innocence is recovered. Read carefully to perceive the subtlety of how often this restoration occurs. Multiple personae do not exist within the walls of the barn, only one. The transformation seems natural, almost insignificant when placed along-side a screaming oak bud. Often times, the strongest statement lies within a still, small voice deep within the soul.

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