John Brown's Body (poem)
Encyclopedia
Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist. Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body , for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By...
. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
, who raided Harpers Ferry in West Virginia in the fall of 1859. He was captured and hanged later that year, and his name and rebellion inspired the civil war song "John Brown's Body
John Brown's Body
"John Brown's Body" is an American marching song about the abolitionist John Brown. The song was popular in the Union during the American Civil War. The tune arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp meeting movement of the 19th century...
". Benet's poem covers the history of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in a classical style and is considered the only great American epic. It won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in 1929.
The poem was performed on Broadway in 1953 in a staged dramatic reading starring Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
, Judith Anderson
Judith Anderson
Dame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE was an Australian-born American-based actress of stage, film and television. She won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.-Early life:...
, and Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
, and directed by Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
.
External links
- Benet, Stephen Vincent. 1928. John Brown's Body. Chicago: Elephant Paperback.
- Google Reader http://books.google.com/books?id=7J7zBhrfSl0C&pgis=1
- Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/092958726X
- Oates, Stephen B. 1984. To Purge This Land With Blood: A Biography of John Brown. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. Google Reader http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ugB4_JPfieYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=john+brown+harpers+ferry&ots=VTh-srN1ZJ&sig=6Djvr6OsoHfGv2mPiPvBfNX2b0E
- West Virginia Archives and History http://www.wvculture.org/History/jnobrown.html
- John J. Miller, "'John Brown's Body' Exhumed," Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2009
- Project Gutenberg: John Brown's Body (1928) (full text)