Brandeis Uni.'s John Burt on Robert Penn Warren & All the King's Men

In this week’s episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy and U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng interview John Burt, the Paul Prosswimmer Professor of American Literature at Brandeis University. Prof. Burt offers rich insight into the life and work of one of the 20th century’s greatest American writers, Robert Penn Warren. Raised in rural southwestern Kentucky, Warren was deeply shaped by the legacy of the Civil War, which he explored in his influential 1961 work, The Legacy of the Civil War, and throughout his poetry and fiction. Prof. Burt shares that as a young man at Vanderbilt, Warren was influenced by the “Fugitives” literary group and contributed to I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition, a decision he later deeply regretted. His Pulitzer-winning novel All the King’s Men follows the rise and fall of populist governor Willie Stark, modeled in part on Huey Long and Julius Caesar, through the eyes of journalist Jack Burden, whose personal and philosophical journey mirrors Stark’s. Prof. Burt shares that the novel wrestles with the limits of knowledge and the weight of moral responsibility, culminating in a powerful meditation on time, history, and the human condition.