Bearded Oaks Analysis

On the page, this poem looks very respectable indeed. It's composed of ten quatrains (those are four-line stanzas) and written (A) in something called iambic tetrameter. Now don't get all worked up...

If you've ever heard Robert Penn Warren read any of his work (check out "Best of the Web: Audio"), it's hard to get that thick, slow, consonant-swallowing drawl out of your mind when reading his po...

The poem starts out one late afternoon under the oaks as the sun fades and the night takes over. It's a tranquil little spot, just the place for a happy couple to chill and watch the sunset. Pretty...

Picture it: you're chilling with your honey, just behind a curtain of moss. The day has been sweet and the chillaxing has been epic. Lying together silently, you're together in the moment. What's t...

Actually, the title ("Bearded Oaks") has more going on than you might think, just like Spanish moss has much more going on in it than you probably want to think about. (Chiggers make their nest in...

Just as you'd expect from such a learned, Southern gentleman, Robert Penn Warren is skilled in a kind of courtesy and grace, while also suggesting some of the ferocity that lurks just below the sur...

A hike up to the tree line—makes sense for a poem about trees, doesn't it? But what about the air above them? And can you see the forest for these trees? Stick with us, Shmoopers, and your eyesig...

Although Vanderbilt University figured prominently in Robert Penn Warren's development as a writer, it wasn't his first choice at all. He wanted to go to Annapolis and command the Pacific fleet. He...

Sure, we arrived too late for the main action, we get a sense of what that couple was up to out there under the oaks. There's nothing explicit here, but it's hard not to see this one hour of eterni...