ABSTRACT
From 1928 with the publication of his verse epic John Brown'sBody until his untimely passing in 1943, Stephen Vincent Benet was one of the most popular and beloved writers in the United States. The commercial success of his lyrical and dramatic history of the American Civil War was unprecedented and propelled Benet into the forefront of literary recognition, which he sustained with poetry, fiction, libretti, and radio scripts that tackled social issues such as the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, and support for the Allied forces at the outset of World War II and then for the United States after Pearl Harbor. In addition, Benet's short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1937 and became an American legend. If Benet's good friend Archibald MacLeish could be described as an America!'! Stoic, then Benet was an "American Visceral" who wore his heart on his pen.
