SOURCE: Bohner, Charles H. “The Past and Its Burden.” In Robert Penn Warren, pp. 102-05. New York: Twayne, 1964.

In the following excerpt, Bohner perceives “Blackberry Winter” to be a masterpiece that effectively addresses themes of memory, nostalgia, loss, and change.

Released suddenly from the concentrated work necessary to complete All the King's Men and the critical essay on The Ancient Mariner, Warren in the spring of 1946 found himself in a retrospective mood. Living in the heart of Minneapolis, a Northern city where snow was still falling in May, he was, as he said, “indulging nostalgia” in recalling the coming of spring in his native Kentucky and Tennessee. The chain of association sparked by those memories led to a short story, “Blackberry Winter,” which was published in 1946. It is Warren's masterpiece and one of the great stories of American literature.

The action of the story is simply the events...