John Brown's Body

Front Cover
Dramatists Play Service Inc, 2001 - Biography & Autobiography - 105 pages
THE STORY: There are three principal speaking parts, plus a chorus that speaks and sings. Though this is technically an epic poem, it is actually a highly dramatic work with a quality of excitement unrivaled by many plays. The poem begins with John
 

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Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
3
Section 3
5
Section 4
42
Section 5
91
Section 6
92
Section 7
93
Section 8
96
Section 9
97
Section 10
98
Section 11
99

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About the author (2001)

A poet, dramatist, and short story writer, Stephen Vincent Benet was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1898 and attended Yale University. A Guggenhein Fellowship in 1926 enabled him to work in Paris on a long poem that appeared two years later and received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (1928). The poem John Brown's Body brought Benet instant popularity. This narrative history of the Civil War in rhyme and blank verse told from the point of view of ordinary people of both the North and the South is a remarkable epic of the United States. Although Benet had enormously influential on other poets, notably the Harlem Renaissance writer Anne Spencer, and despite his wide popular audience, he has not received high praise from academic critics. Benet died in 1943.

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