Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War John Brown's Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, The Library of America selected Benét’s story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub.

Benét was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to James Walker Benét, a colonel in the United States Army, and his wife. His grandfather and namesake was a Minorcan descendant born in St. Augustine, Florida who led the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps from 1874 to 1891 with the rank of brigadier general, a graduate of the United States Military Academy who served in the American Civil War. The younger Benét's paternal uncle Laurence Vincent Benét was an ensign in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War who later manufactured the French-Hotchkiss machine gun.

At about age ten, Benét was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy. He graduated from Summerville Academy in Augusta, Georgia and from Yale University, where he was "the power behind the Yale Lit", according to Thornton Wilder, a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. He also edited and contributed light verse to campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He published his first book at age 17 and was awarded an M.A. in English upon submission of his third volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis. He was also a part-time contributor to the early Time magazine.

In 1920-21, Benét went to France on a Yale traveling fellowship. There he met Rosemary Carr, whom he married in Chicago in November 1921. Carr was also a writer and poet, and they collaborated on some works.

Man of Letters

They came here, they toiled here, they suffered many pains, they lived here, they died here, they left singing names” — Used by the Menorcan Cultural Society to honor their Minorcan ancestors who fled Andrew Turnbull's failed New Smyrna, Florida colony and found sanctuary in St. Augustine, Florida (though Benet actually wrote those lines in a poem about the French pioneers of America). Benét helped solidify the place of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and the Yale University Press during his decade-long judgeship of the competition. He published the first volumes of James Agee, Muriel Rukeyser, Jeremy Ingalls, and Margaret Walker. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1931.

Benét's fantasy short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) won an O. Henry Award. He furnished the material for Scratch, a one-act opera by Douglas Moore. The story was filmed in 1941 and shown originally under the title All That Money Can Buy. He also wrote the sequel "Daniel Webster and the Sea Serpent", in which Daniel Webster encounters Leviathan.

Young Benét lived in Augusta, Georgia in what is now known as Stephen Vincent Benét House, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971. Benet House is situated on the Summerville Campus of Augusta University, but it was originally part of the Augusta Arsenal. Benet's father Col. James Walker Benet lived in this house with his wife and daughter while he was the commanding officer of the Augusta Arsenal from approximately August 1911 to February 1919. Stephen Vincent Benet would have visited his parents while they were resident. The local newspaper considered it newsworthy enough to congratulate Benet on winning the Maysfield Prize for best undergraduate poem while Benet attended Yale. Benet House was the name assigned to the building when it became the property of Augusta College. It was once the residence of the college president but now serves as space for administrative offices.

Benét died of a heart attack in New York City on March 13, 1943 at the age of 44 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Stonington, Connecticut, where he had owned the historic Amos Palmer House. On April 17, 1943, NBC broadcast a special tribute to his life and works which included a performance by Helen Hayes. He was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for Western Star, an unfinished narrative poem on the settling of the United States.

Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee takes its title from the final phrase of Benét's poem "American Names". The full quotation appears at the beginning of Brown's book:

I shall not be there I shall rise and pass Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

Benét adapted the Roman myth of the rape of the Sabine Women into the story "The Sobbin' Women". It was adapted as the movie musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. His play John Brown's Body was staged on Broadway in 1953 in a three-person dramatic reading featuring Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, and Raymond Massey, directed by Charles Laughton. The book of the same name was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–44.

Benét's children were Thomas, Stephanie, and Rachel. His brother William Rose Benét was a poet, anthologist, and critic who is largely remembered for his desk reference Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia (1948).

• American muse, whose strong and diverse heart 
• So many men have tried to understand 
• But only made it smaller with their art 
• Because you are as various as your land ... - from John Brown's Body

Children:

1. Thomas
2. Stephanie
3. Rachel Felicity 1931-1990

A Brief Biography:

Benét was successful in many different literary forms, which included novels, short stories, screenplays, radio broadcasts, and a libretto for an opera by Douglas Moore based on "The Devil and Daniel Webster." His most famous work is the long poem John Brown's Body for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1929—a long narrative poem which interweaves historical and fictional characters to relate important events in the Civil War, from the raid on Harper's Ferry to Lee's surrender at Appomattox. During his lifetime, Benét also received the O. Henry Story Prize, the Roosevelt Medal, and a second Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for the posthumously-published Western Star, the first part of an epic poem based on American history. At the age of 44, Benét suffered a heart attack and died on March 13, 1943, in New York City. 

Links

• Arlington Cemetery
• Wikipedia
• Fountain Hill
• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• imdb
• Find A Grave
• Famous Author Quotes (source of profile photo)