Robert Penn Warren’s Brother to Dragons is book-length verse, written in the form of dialogue among the poet and long-deceased historical figures, most notably Thomas Jefferson. Originally published in 1953, this work was significantly revised by the author and reissued in 1979. Although based on historical fact and adapted for the stage, Warren stresses in his Foreword that this is not a play, nor is it history.

…I am trying to write a poem, not a history, and therefore have no compunction about tampering with non-essential facts. But poetry is…committed to the obligation of trying to say something, however obliquely, about the human condition. Therefore, a poem dealing with history is no more at liberty to violate what the writer takes to be the spirit of his history than it is at liberty to violate what he takes to be the nature of the human heart…

Historical sense and poetic sense should not, in the end, be contradictory, for if poetry is the little myth we make, history is the myth we live, and in our living, constantly remake. (xiii)

Although nominally about the murder of a young slave by Thomas Jefferson’s nephew, Lilburne Lewis, the central focus of this poem is found in the individual strivings of Jefferson and the poet, represented as R.P.W., to reconcile with the imperfection of being human. “...There’s no forgiveness for our being human./ It is the inexpungable error…” (19)

Jefferson struggles with his exaggerated idealism, personal vanity, and reluctant recognition of his own culpability for the tragic events revisited in the verse.

My name is Jefferson. Thomas. I
Lived. Died. But
Dead, cannot lie down in the
Dark. Cannot, though dead, set
My mouth to the dark stream that I may unknow
All my knowing. Cannot, for if,
Kneeling in that final thirst, I thrust
Down my face, I see come glimmering upward,
White, white out of the absolute dark of depth,
My face. And it is only human. (5)

Warren uses mythological references to introduce man’s ever-present potential for evil as the source of his protagonists’ unrest. Mankind is compared to the Minotaur, born of an unnatural union between human and beast, and able to derive sustenance only from devouring man. Jefferson describes the founding fathers in Philadelphia as wandering in their own Labyrinth, issuing the Declaration of Independence in an act of joyful, yet blind arrogance. The divergent storylines of Meriwether and Lilburne Lewis then emerge, both of whom Warren views as having “…entered the wilderness as heralds of civilization, as“light-bringers”…”(xiii), although with vastly different sensibilities.

...And I who once said, all liberty
Is bought with blood, must now say,
All truth is bought with blood, and the blood is ours,
.................................................................
And doom is always domestic, it purrs like a cat,
And the absolute traitor lurks in some sweet corner of the blood.
Therefore, I walk and wake, and cannot die.” (8-9)

The renowned American explorer, Meriwether Lewis, is presented by the poet as a cousin and “near-son” to Jefferson. Having journeyed west at Jefferson’s behest and sharing in his dream of exploring the Northwest Territory, Meriwether finds his return tarnished by the injustices of civilized society. His voice is unsettling in its accusatory tone, as he levels blame on Jefferson for having instilled in him a false vision of noble purpose, the lie of which has lead to his death by suicide.

Lilburne Lewis is the son of Colonel Charles Lewis and his wife Lucy, the sister of Thomas Jefferson. Cruel by nature and worse when drunk, Lilburne has never recovered emotionally from the death of his mother and his actions seem driven by an awful intermingling of madness and distorted emotion. He abuses his wife, kicks his hound, strikes a slave for breaking a cup and then whips him for protesting this punishment. Still unable to assuage his rage, he focuses on a sixteen-year old slave, John, deliberately entrapping him in the infraction of breaking his mother’s pitcher. Ordering his younger brother Isham and their slaves to assist, Lilburne kills John, a senseless and gruesome murder committed with a meat axe, the body burned in the fireplace, and the bones buried by the slaves in a shallow grave. His crime discovered when a dog unearths a bone, Lilburne is charged by warrant .“…as being moved and seduced by the instigation/ Of the Devil…”(89-90) and lures Isham into murdering him, in an ultimate act of betrayal.

Warren portrays the women of his story, both white and black, as powerful forces in these tragic events. Lilburne’s mother, wife, and black mammy all profess to love him, yet each plays an unwitting role in precipitating his deranged act of violence. Lucy Lewis blames herself for her sons’ tragedy, feeling that in dying she has failed them. “That the human curse is simply to love and sometimes to love well,/But never well enough. It’s as simple as that.” (18) Lilburne blames his wife, Letitia, for setting events in motion after his abuse causes her to flee to her brother. Aunt Cat, slave and black mammy to Lilburne, and the poem’s one wholly fictional character, shows the intertwined and ambivalent nature of the relationship between master and slave. Her love for Lilburne is genuine, yet she is wounded by his rejection and participates intentionally, although indirectly, in his downfall.

R.P.W. {addressing Letitia}: She loved you so much, that’s one way to put it.
Or hated them, for that’s another,
And that’s nothing strange
In that, for every act is but a door
Between two rooms, on equal hinges hung
To open either way, on either room
And every act to become an act must resolve
The essential polarity of possibility,
Yet in the act polarity will lurk,
Like the apple blossom ghostly in the full-grown fruit.
Yet all we yearn for is the dear redemption of
Simplicity. (38-39)

The author is himself a questioning presence throughout and introduces the poem’s central theme in his own search for redemption of man’s failings. ”Who has seen man in his naked absoluteness?”(22) Employing a device that he will repeat subsequently in Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, Warren visits the now deteriorated site of the Lewis home, accompanied by his father. This departure from the “No place…Any time” setting of the poem conveys the poet’s own journey towards acceptance of man’s inherently imperfect nature.

The voices of Warren’s characters intermingle throughout the book with Jefferson and R.P.W. always present. Meriwether and Isham alternate as primary narrators of events, augmented by the women and several minor characters. Lilburne and John are barely heard, interpreted mainly through the perspective of others. Warren’s language is dense with metaphor, mythological, biblical and historical references. He crafts his characters, and their posthumous efforts to find redemption, with depth and complexity, and is masterful in the subtlety with which he reveals the contradictions of Thomas Jefferson as a man and historical figure. But while the grounding in actual history is supported through the Foreword and Notes, Warren’s true brilliance is in his interpretation of the motives and emotions that may have driven people who actually lived. This is what drew me in, leading me to read and re-read this poem.

I found this to be a difficult but ultimately very rewarding poem. There is a great deal about it that still challenges me and I hope to return to it again some day. ( )

Warren's BROTHER TO DRAGONS is a powerful examination of the American conscience and human consciousness.The poetic narrative, written as dialogue of voices, examines the murder of a young slave by two of Thomas Jefferson's nephews, Lilburne and Isham Lewis, the sons of his sister Lucy. Lilburne is the tortured perpetrator of the evil in the tale -- charming, mad and sadistic (he reminded me of Edgar Watson in Peter Matthiessen's KILLING MISTER WATSON) -- but he, himself, never appears on stage. His story is told and dissected by the witnesses: Letitia, his wife; her brother, Billy Rutter; Aunt Cat, Lilburne's mammy; and Isham. Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis provide counterpoints to testimony of the witnesses, and RPW, the poet, questions and comments from a 20th c. perspective.

On the surface, the poem examines the conflict between the rationalistic idealism of Jefferson and propensity for evil in the human soul. But the propensity for evil in this poem comes directly from the corrupting nature of the slave system -- which claims as victims not only the slaves, but the masters, and the founders of the United States who allowed slavery to poison the democratic ideals they claimed in their revolution.

Warren's poetry is powerful, and the narrative is driving. The poem is particularly poignant and telling given the present circumstances of the suspension of human rights by the US at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. ( )