Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an influential American poet, novelist, and literary critic. Warren's notable contribution to literature includes being one of the founders of New Criticism, a method of understanding literature in its own context, and a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

He co-founded the prestigious literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. In 1947, Warren received the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946), a poignant exploration of power, politics, and corruption in the American South. This achievement made him the only person to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry, with subsequent wins in 1958 and 1979 for his poetic works.

Warren's education spanned prestigious institutions. After graduating from Clarksville High School in Tennessee, he attended Vanderbilt University, the University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, and as a Rhodes Scholar, obtained his B. Litt. from New College, Oxford, in England in 1930.