" Опять последовали тычки зонтиком и голоса с другой телеги: - Хорошенько его, хорошенько баловня!..
По дороге, параллельно рельсам, катит закрытый грузовик с красным фонарем и квадратными окошечками спереди. "Похоже на цирковой фургон; не удивлюсь, если его ведет клоун"...
Во всяком случае, грамматики начинали прежде всех, и как только вмешивались риторы, они уже бежали прочь и становились на возвышениях наблюдать битву. Потом вступала фило..
American poet, novelist, and writer of short stories, best-known for JOHN BROWN'S BODY, a long epic poem on the Civil War, which Bene't wrote in France. Bene't received two Pulitzer prizes for his poetry. He was one of those rare poets who was both popular and critically acclaimed.
"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,
As mountainous - deep, as flowered with blue rivers,
Thirsty with deserts, buried under snows,
As native as the shape of Navajo quivers
And native, too, as the sea-voyaged rose."
(from John Brown's Body)
Stephen Vincent Bene't was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, into an army family. His father was Colonel J. Walker Bene't. Frances Neill (Rose) Bene't, Stephen's mother, was a descendant of an old Kentucky military family. Because his father was an avid reader, who especially loved poetry, Bene't grew up in home, where literature was valued and enjoyed. Most of his boyhood Bene't spent in Benicia, California. At the age about ten, Bene't was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy. However, he preferred reading to athletics and did not like the insensitivity of his school mates. Later wrote about his experiences 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." Benet completed his secondary education in Augusta, Georgia, where his father had been assigned a new post. Bene't'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.
Bene't was rejected from the army because of his defective vision. During the war he worked in Washington as a cipher-clerk in the same department as James Thurber, who also had poor eyesight. Bene't received from Yale his master's degree, submitting his third volume of poems, HEAVENS AND EARTH (1920), instead of a thesis. In Yale his contemporaries included Thronton Wilder and Archibald MacLeish.
Bene't's first novel, the autobiographical THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM (1921), showed the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He continued his studies at Sorbonne, France, where lived somewhat bohemian life and met his wife, the writer and journalist Rosemary Carr. In 1923 he returned to the United States. During the 1920s he wrote three other novels, YOUNG PEOPLE'S PRIDE (1922), serialized in Harper's Bazaar, JEAN HUGUENOT (1923), and SPANISH BAYONET (1926), a historical novel about the 18th-century Florida. It focused on Bene't's ancestors. JAMES SHORE'S DAUGHTER (1934), a story about wealth and responsibility, is usually considered among Bene't's best novels. .
In 1926 Bene't went back to France, where he lived for four years, and started to write 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." Already in his childhood, Bene't had been fascinated by his father's old Rebellion Records and his Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. While working with the poem in France, he collected background material from libraries. Seen from the perspective of a young, small town boy, the poem interweaved stories of historical and fictional figures, from the raid of Harper's Ferry to General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House. John Brown's Body appeared with the acclaim of critics, although Harriet Moore labelled it a "cinematic epic" in Poetry, and some other critics, in tune with the times, tried to find from it important social issues.
Before starting any new work, Bene't 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..."
"I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin titles of mining claims,
The plumed war bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat."
Bene't was elected in 1929 to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and nine years later to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In the 1930s Bene't published among others A BOOK OF AMERICANS (1933) with his wife. It was nostalgic excursion to the past, "When Daniel Boone goes by, at night, / The phantom deer arise / And all lost, wild America / Is burning in their eyes." Bene't popular poem, 'American Names', appeared first in BALLADS AND POEMS (1931). The poem ends with the line 'Bury my heart at Wounded Knee'. THE BURNING CITY (1936) included the bitter 'Litany for Dictatorships', in which Bene't attacked fascism and mass mentality: "We are all good citizens here. We believe in the / Perfect State." THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1937) was an one-act play, inspired by Washington Irving's story.
A short story collection, THIRTEEN O'CLOCK (1937), included the famous 'The Devil and Daniel Webster'. It was later made into a play, and opera (music by Douglas Moore), and a motion picture entitled All That Money Can Buy, directed by William Dieterle and starring Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch. In the story a hard-pressed farmer, Jabez Stone, makes a deal with the Devil, but is saved from the pit by a famous lawyer's pleading at his 'trial'. The jury which he calls to hear Webster's case in compounded out of the greatest villains of American history. Bene't based his tale on Faust, but set it in the 19th-century New England. In an other work, 'Johnny Pye and the Fool-Killer', published in TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT (1939), Bene't Americanized the Death. Besides the horror, mystery and fantastic, Bene't was interested in science fiction. The dystopic tale, 'By the Waters of Babylon', was first published in 1937, years before the Atomic Bomb. The tale was set in the future, in a world after the Great Burning - the fire which fell out of the sky. Poor vision had plagued Bene't throughout his life, and he was also crippled by arthritis and suffered a bout of mental illness. These personal problems perhaps affected his later fantasies, such as 'The Minister's Books' and 'The Angel Was a Yankee', collected in THE LAST CIRCLE (1946).
Bene't also made a number of radio broadcasts and worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. He wrote a series of radio scripts, including LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE (1941) and THEY BURNED THE BOOKS (1942). His short stories, produced during these years, were often written under pressure to pay bills. In the early 1940s Bene't 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. For the Office of War Information Bene't wrote a short history of the United States, which was translated and distributed in Europe. Bene't died of a heart attack in New York City, on March 13, 1943. He was posthumously awarded in 1944 the Pulitzer Prize for WESTERN STAR. The poem was the first volume of a large verse epic about the American frontier. Benet's elder brother, William Rose Bene't, become a journalist, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, who helped found the Saturday Review of Literature. Bene't's The Reader's Encyclopedia (1948) was for decades the standard American guide to world literature.
For further reading: Stephen Vincent Bene't by William Rose Bene't (1943); Stephen Vincent Bene't: The Life and Times of an American Man of Letters, 1898-1943 by Charles A. Fenton (1958); Stephen Vincent Bene't by Parry Stroud (1962); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, vol. 1, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999); Stephen Vincent Benet: Essays on His Life and Work, ed. by David Garrett Izzo (2002) - See also: The Headless Horseman; Washington Irving
Selected works:
FIVE MEN AND POMPEY, 1915
THE DRUG-SHOP, 1917
YOUNG ADVENTURE, 1918
HEAVENS AND EARTH, 1920
THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM, 1921
YOUNG PEOPLE'S PRIDE, 1922
JEAN HUGUENOT, 1923
THE BALLAD OF WILLIAM SYCAMORE, 1923
KING DAVID, 1923
NERVES, 1924 (with John Farar)
THAT AWFUL MRS. EATON, 1924 (with John Farrar)
TIGER JOY, 1925
SPANISH BAYONET, 1926
JOHN BROWN'S BODY, 1928
THE BAREFOOT SAINT, 1929
THE LITTER OF ROSE LEAVES, 1930
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1930 (screenplay with Gerrit Lloyd)
BALLADS AND POEMS, 1915-1930, 1931
A BOOK OF AMERICANS, 1933 (with Rosemary Carr Bene't)
JAMES SHORE'S DAUGHTER, 1934
THE BURNING CITY, 1936 (includes 'Litany for Dictatorships')
THE MAGIC OF POETRY AND THE POET'S ART, 1936
THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN, 1937
THIRTEEN O'CLOCK, 1937 (includes 'The Devil and Daniel Webster', basis for a play, an opera, and a motion picture All That Money Can Buy / The Devil and Daniel Webster, dir. William Dieterle, starring Walter Huston, Edward Arnold, James Craig, Anne Shirley)
JOHNNY PYE AND THE FOOL KILLER, 1938
TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT, 1939
THE BALLAD OF THE DUKE'S MERCY, 1939
NIGHTMARE AT NOON, 1940
ELEMENTALS, 1940-41 (broadcast)
FREEDOM'S HARD BOUGHT THING, 1941 (broadcast)
LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE, 1941
A SUMMONS TO THE FREE, 1941
CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP, 1941 (screenplay with Adelaide Heilbron, Sheridan Gibney)
THEY BURNED THE BOOKS, 1942
SELECTED WORKS, 1942 (2 vols.)
SHORT STORIES, 1942
NIGHTMARE AT NOON, 1942 (in The Treasury Star Parade, ed. by William A. Bacher)
A CHILD IS BORN, 1942 (broadcast)
THEY BURNED THE BOOKS, 1942 (broadcast)
WESTERN STAR, 1943 (unfinished)
AMERICA, 1944
O'HALLORAN'S LUCK AND OTHER SHORT STORIES, 1944
WE STAND UNITED, 1945 (radio scripts)
THE BISHOP'S BEGGAR, 1946
THE LAST CIRCLE, 1946
SELECTED STORIES, 1947
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, 1958
SELECTED LETTERS, 1960
SELECTED POETRY AND PROSE, 1960
STEPHEN VINCENT BENE'T ON WRITING, 1964
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON, 1989
DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER AND OTHER WRITINGS, 1999 (ed. by Townsed Ludington)
