Stephen Vincent Benét (pronounced bə- NAY ; July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He wrote a long poem that tells a story about the American Civil War called John Brown's Body, which was published in 1928. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for this work. He also wrote two short stories: The Devil and Daniel Webster, published in 1936, and By the Waters of Babylon, published in 1937.

In 2009, the Library of America chose his story The King of the Cats, published in 1929, to be included in its two-century collection of American Fantastic Tales, which was edited by Peter Straub.

Early life and education

Benét was born on July 22, 1898, in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania, which is part of the Lehigh Valley region in eastern Pennsylvania. His father was James Walker Benét, a colonel in the U.S. Army. Benét’s grandfather, who had the same name, was a brigadier general who led the Army Ordnance Corps from 1874 to 1891. He also served in the Civil War. His paternal uncle, Laurence Vincent Benét, was an ensign in the U.S. Navy during the Spanish–American War. Later, he helped produce the French Hotchkiss machine gun.

When Benét was about ten years old, he attended the Hitchcock Military Academy in San Rafael, California. He graduated first in his class from Summerville Academy in Augusta, Georgia, and later from Yale University. Thornton Wilder, a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club at Yale, described Benét as "the power behind the Yale Lit." While at Yale, Benét edited and wrote humorous poems for the campus magazine The Yale Record.

Benét published his first book when he was 17 years old. He earned an M.A. in English after submitting his third collection of poetry instead of writing a thesis. He also worked as a part-time writer for Time magazine during its early years.

In 1920 and 1921, Benét traveled to France on a Yale University fellowship. There, he met Rosemary Carr. The couple married in Chicago in November 1921. Carr was also a writer and poet, and the two worked together on some projects.

In 1926, Benét received a Guggenheim Fellowship. While living in Paris, he wrote the book John Brown's Body.

Career

Benét helped strengthen the importance of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and Yale University Press during his ten years as a judge for the competition. He published the first books of James Agee, Muriel Rukeyser, Jeremy Ingalls, and Margaret Walker.

In 1929, Benét was chosen as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Two years later, in 1931, he received a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Out of John Brown's strong sinews the tall skyscrapers grow, Out of his heart the chanting buildings rise, Rivet and girder, motor and dynamo, Pillar of smoke by day and fire by night, The steel-faced cities reaching at the skies, The whole enormous and rotating cage Hung with hard jewels of electric light, Smoky with sorrow, black with splendor, dyed Whiter than damask for a crystal bride With metal suns, the engine-handed Age, The genie we have raised to rule the earth, Obsequious to our will But servant-master still, The tireless serf already half a god —

Benét won the O. Henry Award three times for his short stories: in 1932, for An End to Dreams; in 1937, for The Devil and Daniel Webster; and in 1940, for Freedom's a Hard-Bought Thing.

His fantasy short story The Devil and Daniel Webster inspired several unauthorized dramatizations by other writers after its publication, which led Benét to adapt his own work for the stage. Benét asked composer Douglas Moore to create an opera of the work, with Benét writing the words for the opera in 1937.

The Devil and Daniel Webster: An Opera in One Act, published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1939, premiered on Broadway that same year. The opera version of Benét's The Devil and Daniel Webster was created from 1937 through 1939, and its text served as the basis for a 1938 play adaptation of the work, The Devil and Daniel Webster: A Play in One Act, published by Dramatists Play Service in 1938. The play, in turn, was used as the source for a screenplay adaptation co-written by Benét, which was released in 1941 as All That Money Can Buy.

Benét also wrote a sequel, Daniel Webster and the Sea Serpent, in which Daniel Webster encounters Leviathan.

Death

Benét died of a heart attack in New York City on March 13, 1943, when he was 44 years old. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Stonington, Connecticut. He owned the historic Amos Palmer House there.

Legacy

On April 17, 1943, NBC Radio aired a special program honoring his life and work, which included a performance by Helen Hayes. He received a Pulitzer Prize after his death in 1944 for Western Star, an unfinished story poem about the settling of the United States.

Benét adapted the Roman myth of the rape of the Sabine Women into the story "The Sobbin' Women." This story was later turned into the musical film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), then a stage musical (1978), and finally a television series (1982). His play John Brown's Body was performed on Broadway in 1953 in a three-person dramatic reading featuring actors Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, and Raymond Massey. The performance was directed by Charles Laughton. The book was listed in Life magazine's collection of the 100 outstanding books from 1924–44.

Dee Brown's book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee takes its title from the final lines of Benét's poem "American Names":

"You may bury my body in Sussex grass, You may bury my tongue at Champmédy. I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee."

These last two lines appear as an epigram at the beginning of Brown's book.