Benét, Stephen Vincent

Benét, Stephen Vincent (benā') [key], 1898–1943, American poet and author, b. Bethlehem, Pa., grad. Yale, 1919; brother of William Rose Benét. After graduating from college, Benét published several volumes of verse, including A Ballad of William Sycamore (1923), and several novels, of which Jean Huguenot (1923) and The Spanish Bayonet (1926) are the best. He is most famous for John Brown's Body (1928), a long narrative poem of the Civil War (Pulitzer Prize, 1929), and his short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” Western Star, a long narrative poem about the westward migration left unfinished at his death, was published in 1943 (Pulitzer Prize, 1944).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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