The Two Versions of Brother to Dragons and Why I Think 1979 Is Better

The constant evolution of Warren’s system of ideals led, in the case of the two versions of Brother to Dragons, to a revision of his earlier works. I had many problems with the original edition as far as Warren’s writing is concerned. Similar to Warren’s issues in his earlier volumes of poetry, I felt that Warren spent much of his time philosophizing and moralizing. His rhetorical waffling feels more like a sermon than an exploration of the darkness in men’s hearts; the pastoral scenes are exemplary in their depiction of nature, but Warren fails to communicate the same inspiration, the same serenity he draws from the natural world in his later poems.

In the series of essays on the differences between the two editions of the poem, critics note the differences in diction and, by extension, tone, rhythm, and meter. Though my study does not deal specifically with the two editions of the poem, the significance of Warren’s growing maturity between the two pieces is important to interpreting his brand of spirituality. The most notable structural differences include the division of the poem into numbered sections and the redistributions of voices. The holistic text is somewhat disrupted by the numbered sections in my opinion; whereas before the action flowed easily from RPW’s climb up to the Lewis property into the murder of the slave boy, now specific actions serve as the focal point for a section. The less ordered poem better linked the importance of the events from the past, i.e. the earthquake and murder, with the present. In short, I felt that the lack of division better emphasized the setting and time as “nowhere” and “anytime.” By placing the murder as distinctly separate from the climb up the mountain, Warren allows the two events to exist separately when I feel that his intention is that they should coexist side by side in history.

As for the redistribution of voices, I feel that Warren does far better to cut back on the long, moralistic passages that characterize RPW’s lines and instead focus on the historical figures’ role in the events. The problem with RPW’s rhetorically elevated monologues stems from a complexity of phrasing and a pomposity of tone that makes them difficult to understand. Worse, RPW appears boring compared to the horrific action in which the historical figures take part. In the boredom, if by no other fault of the writing, Warren lost my attention. I found myself much more engaged in the 1979 edition where the action took precedence. Moreover, the thematic elements of guilt and the human capacity for evil come across more strongly when mourned by an ex-President and founding father.

With regard to said ex-President’s “conversion,” in the 1953 edition I originally found Jefferson’s turnabout inauthentic on many levels. The first being that, as a founding father, I maybe had some feeling that he should remain idealistic no matter the evidence against his idealism, for the sake of the nation he founded if for no other reason. Now that I’m in a better position to evaluate the choice to use Jefferson, having read a great deal more about Warren’s vision of history, I can better understand that Warren was doing everything he could to make Jefferson more human. I can appreciate the need to humanize men that history places on pedestals, even if it conflicts with my instinctive view of these men. With that problem aside, I still cannot accept Jefferson’s conversion, even if he’s less a marble statue and more human. Warren, I feel sure, understood how difficult it must be for a man to abandon the hope that his nature transcends, for whatever reason, the evil that haunts the rest of mankind. The ease with which Jefferson abandoned his hope felt unnatural. In the 1979 edition, Warren made the scene much more believable for several reasons, the most notable of which is that Meriwether Lewis’ role is much expanded. Lewis, the only other character who discusses the moment his idealism melted and he learned to be at peace with himself, speaks much more about his situation and takes several of the lines Jefferson spoke in 1953. Coming from one who has long accepted his fate, they do not ring false. Warren also uses an interesting technique he ignored in his earlier work where all the voices speak in unison, a sort of gestalt representation of humanity. Again, Jefferson loses some of his lines to this mass voice and, in joining it, illustrates physically that he has changed his opinion of humanity and of himself. The re-voicing of the poem feels like the most significant change because the work is ultimately concerned with the state of humanity and the problem of rejecting that humanity; re-voicing it lends a more plausible feel to Jefferson’s conversion.