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Stephen Vincent Benet [1898-1943] USA
Ranked #319 in the top 380 poets

Stephen Vincent Benét was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, into an army family. His father, Colonel J. Walker Benét, served as a commanding officer of ordinance posts in California and Georgia. Frances Neill (Rose) Benét, Stephen`s mother, was a descendant of an old Kentucky military family. Because his father was an avid reader, Benét grew up in home, where reading literature was valued and enjoyed. At the age about ten, Benét was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy. He did not like the brutality of the school and later wrote about it in his poem about Shelley at Eton: "His pile of books scattered about his feet, / Stood Shelley while two others held him fast, / And the clods beat upon him." Benét`s first book, FIVE MEN AND POMPEY (1915), a collection of verse, was published when he was 17. It showed the romantic influence of William Morris as well as the influence of modern realism. 

Benét was rejected from the army because of his defective vision. 

In Washington he worked as a cipher-clerk in the same department as James Thurber. Benét graduated from Yale in 1919, submitting his third volume of poems instead of a thesis. In Yale his contemporaries included Thronton Wilder and Archibald MacLeish. 

Benét`s first novel, the autobiographical THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM, appeared in 1921. He continued his studies at Sorbonne, France, where he met his wife, the writer Rosemary Carr. In 1923 he returned to the United States. During the 1920s he wrote three other novels, YOUNG PEOPLE`S PRIDE (1922), JEAN HUGUENOT (1923), and SPANISH BAYONET (1926), a historical novel about the 18th-century Florida. It focused on Benét`s ancestors. JAMES SHORE`S DAUGHTER (1934), a story about wealth and responsibility, is usually considered among Benét`s best novels. . 

In 1926 Benét went back to France, where he lived for four years, and worked on his poem about the Civil War, John Brown`s Body. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929. "So, from a hundred visions, I make one,  And out of darkness build my mocking sun." Seen from the perspective of a young, small town boy, it interweaved the stories of historical and fictional figures to produce a richly textured account of the war, from the raid of Harper`s Ferry to General Lee`s surrender at Appomattox Court House. 

Before starting any new work, Benét published a collection of ballads and poems, written over a period of fifteen years. It celebrated American names and people, such as William Sycamore, whose "... father, he was a mountaineer / His fist was a knotty hammer..." 

In the 1930s Benét published among others A BOOK OF AMERICANS (1933) with his wife Rosemary Carr Benét. THE BURNING CITY (1936) included the poem `Litany for Dictatorships`. THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1937) was an one-act play. A short story collection, THIRTEEN O`CLOCK (1937), included the famous `The Devil and Daniel Webster`. The story was later made into a play, and opera (music by Douglas Moore), and a motion picture entitled All That Money Can Buy. Benét also made a number of radio broadcasts and worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. His short stories, produced during these years, were often written under pressure to pay bills. Benét popular poem, `American Names`, appeared first in BALLADS AND POEMS (1931). The poem ends with the line `Bury my heart at Wounded Knee`. 

In the early 1940s Benét was a strong advocate of America`s entry into the war - in the United Nations Day speech President Roosevelt read a prayer specially composed by the author. Benét died in New York City, on March 13, 1943. He was posthumously awarded in 1944 the Pulitzer Prize for his volume of verse WESTERN STAR. The epic poem, part of large but unfinished work, reflected the view that the frontier was the dominant force in American history.

Fantasy



WorkLangRating
The Ballad Of William Sycamore [1790-1871]
eng
22
Army Of Northern Virginia
eng
9
Robert E. Lee
eng
9
The Mountain Whippoorwill
eng
7
A Minor Poet
eng
3
Nightmare Number Three
eng
3
1936
eng
2
Metropolitan Nightmare
eng
2
American Names
eng
1
Dinner In A Quick Lunch Room
eng
1
Girl Child
eng
1
John James Audobon
eng
1
Litany for Dictatorships
eng
1
Love In Twilight
eng
1
Music
eng
1
Portrait Of A Baby
eng
1
The Lost Wife
eng
1
The Lover In Hell
eng
1
The White Peacock
eng
1
To Rosemary, On The Methods By Which She Might Become An Angel
eng
1
Winged Man
eng
1
A Nonsense Song
eng
0
A Sad Song
eng
0
Alexander VI Dines With The Cardinal Of Capua
eng
0
Architects
eng
0
Bad Dream
eng
0
Campus Sonnets: Before An Examination
eng
0
Campus Sonnets: May Morning
eng
0
Campus Sonnets: Return - 1917
eng
0
Campus Sonnets: Talk
eng
0
Captain Kidd
eng
0
Chemical Analysis
eng
0
Colors
eng
0
Complaint Of Body, The Ass, Against His Rider, The Soul
eng
0
Cotton Mather
eng
0
Daniel Boone
eng
0
Days Pass: Men Pass
eng
0
Dedication: To W. R. B.
eng
0
Difference
eng
0
Do You Remember Springfield?
eng
0
Dulce Ridentem
eng
0
Elegy For An Enemy
eng
0
Evening And Morning
eng
0
For All Blasphemers
eng
0
For City Lovers
eng
0
For City Spring
eng
0
For Those Who Are As Right As Any
eng
0
French Pioneers
eng
0
Ghosts Of A Lunatic Asylum
eng
0
Going Back To School
eng
0
Hands
eng
0
Illa
eng
0
In A Glass Of Water before Retiring
eng
0
Judgment
eng
0
King David
eng
0
Lee
eng
0
Legend
eng
0
Lonely Burial
eng
0
Memory
eng
0
Minor Litany
eng
0
Nightmare At Noon
eng
0
Nightmare For Future Reference
eng
0
Nightmare, With Angels
eng
0
Nomenclature
eng
0
Nos Immortales
eng
0
Notes To Be Left In A Cornerstone
eng
0
Ode To The Austrian Socialists
eng
0
Ode To Walt Whitman
eng
0
Old Man Hoppergrass
eng
0
Operation
eng
0
Poor Devil!
eng
0
Portrait Of A Boy
eng
0
Portrait Of Young Love
eng
0
Rain After A Vaudeville Show
eng
0
Road And Hills
eng
0
Short Ode
eng
0
Snowfall
eng
0
Southern Ships And Settlers
eng
0
Sparrow
eng
0
Thanks
eng
0
The Breaking Point
eng
0
The City Revisited
eng
0
The Congressmen Came Out To See Bull Run
eng
0
The Drug-Shop, Or, Endymion In Edmonstoun
eng
0
The Falconer Of God
eng
0
The Fiddling Wood
eng
0
The General Public
eng
0
The Golden Corpse
eng
0
The Hemp
eng
0
The Innovator
eng
0
The Quality Of Courage
eng
0
The Retort Discourteous
eng
0
The Trapeze Performer
eng
0
Thomas Jefferson
eng
0
Three Day`s Ride
eng
0
To Rosemary
eng
0
Western Wagons
eng
0
Young Blood
eng
0

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