Stephen+Vincent+Benet

//**Stephen Vincent Benet**//

Stephen Vincent Benét was born on July 22nd, 1898, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Colonel J. Walker Benét and Frances Neil (Rose) Benét. Young Benét had three siblings, William, Rose, and Laura, who also became writers. Their father greatly appreciated literature and owned a vast collection of novels. Benét eventually attended Yale University, where he published two collections of poetry. One of them was //Five Men and Pompey//, which was published in 1915 as his first ever published work. Two years later, //The Drug-Shop// was published, his second published work during his time at Yale. During his time at Yale, he was drafted into the civilian military serivce where he worked as a cipher-clerk. When his service ended, he resumed his studies at Yale and graduated in 1919. As his thesis, Benet submitted his third volume of poems instead of a traditional thesis. Then, in 1921, he published his first novel, //The Beginning of Wisdom.// Benét then moved to France to continue his work at the Sorbonne. In 1923, he returned to the United States with his new wife, Rosemary Carr, who was also a writer. His most famous work is the epic //John Brown's Body// (a narrative poem which intertwines both historical and fictional characters to tell of important events that occured during the Civil War). In 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression, Benet received the Pulitzer Prize. He also received the O. Henry Story Prize and the Roosevelt Medal. He earned another Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for the //Western Star,//whicih was published after his death. He died of a heart attack when he was only 44 years old on March 13th, 1943, in New York City.

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