What is John Brown's Body (poem)?
{{italic title}} '''John Brown's Body''' is an epic poem by American poet Stephen Vincent Benét.<ref name=PF>[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/stephen-vincent-benet Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943)]</ref> == History == In 1925 Stephen Vincent Benét decided to write a long poem. With this proposal he approached the Guggenheim Foundation.<ref name=PF /> He asked for 2 500 dollars and got it.<ref name=PF /> Then he went to [[France]]. He settled in [[Paris]] and began to write. The poem was published in 1928.<ref name=PF /> At once it became very popular. No American poem gained such popularity earlier. Ever [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]]'s works were not so widely read.<ref name=PF /> 130 000 copies of the book were sold during two years.<ref name=PF /> For this poem the poet received the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in 1929. Many years later he got the second Pulitzer Prize for the poem ''Western Star''. == Form == The poem in written in many measures. The poet employs both regular [[blank verse]],<ref name=EB2 >[https://www.britannica.com/art/blank-verse Blank verse, poetic form.]</ref> [[free verse]] and different [[stanza]]s. This fragment is an example of classical blank verse. : ''Jack Ellyat had been out all day alone,'' : ''Except for his new gun and Ned, the setter,'' : ''The old wise dog with Autumn in his eyes,'' : ''Who stepped the fallen leaves so delicately'' : ''They barely rustled. Ellyat trampled them down'' : ''Crackling, like cast-off skins of fairy snakes.'' : ''He'd meant to hunt, but he had let the gun'' : ''Rest on his shoulder.'' From time to time the poet uses [[alliteration]].<ref name=EB1>[https://www.britannica.com/art/alliteration Alliteration, literature.]</ref> : ''Where the '''s'''kyscrapers lift their foggy plumes'' : ''Of '''s'''tranded '''s'''moke out of a '''s'''tony mouth'' : ''You are that high '''s'''tone and its arrogant fumes,'' : ''And you are ruined gardens in the '''S''outh'' == The story told == John Brown's Body is a poem about Civil War