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Tuesday, 01 May 2007 18:01 |
| | David Forbes |
Stephen Vincent BenÈt was once one of the most popular authors in the country.
He won two Pulitzers for his poetry. His stories were published in all the biggest magazines and regarded as a major force in the fiction of the time.
He was an early pioneer of science fiction and wrote powerfully about the looming specters of fascism and war at a time when most of America wanted to forget the rest of the world.
Yet now, sadly, it is BenÈt himself who has been forgotten.
Occasionally an avid reader might come upon his works, most likely the
tall tale ìThe Devil and Daniel Websterî (brilliantly spoofed on ìThe
Simpsonsî) or his epic poem of the Civil War, ìJohn Brownís Body.î
Much of his other work is out of print, much of his powerful poetry forgotten. BenÈt has seemingly become a footnote.
That is for the worse. While he was indeed a spinner of adventure tales
and an advocate for the American spirit, he also wrote in an age much
like our own, plagued by war, shattered hopes and anxiety.
I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a volume of his poetry at The
Readerís Corner recently (published 1946). It amazes me how fresh and
relevant many of his words remain.
I first discovered BenÈtís work in my high-school days with the poem
ìLitany for Dictatorship,î tucked in a minor anthology whose name
escapes me. I remember being blown away by the sheer dark power of his
words. He wrote about the rise of fascism in Europe, in the 1930s, but
like the best of poets, managed to craft words of universal depth and
meaning. Many of those stanzas remain etched in my mind, such as the
opening:
ìFor all those beaten, for the broken heads/The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time...î
Over the ensuing years I sought out everything by BenÈt I could find.
While poetry seems to have drawn out the height of his powers, he was
an excellent writer of prose as well, especially the short story. I
found other powerful poems, such as ìNightmare, with Angels.î Sadly, he
died in 1943, before the war he had predicted for so long had come to
an end.
While ìThe Devil and Daniel Websterî was his most famous piece, he also
wrote ìBy the Waters of Babylonî (fortunately still in print), one of
the first post-apocalyptic stories, which saw a youth sent on a
revealing journey to ìthe great dead places.î BenÈt did this not after
Hiroshima, but in 1937.
His best, in my opinion, is ìThe Last of the Legions,î the tale of a
Roman soldier in the final days before the legions leave Britain,
facing his own uncertainty and the hastening fall of an empire. It
remains a bleak masterpiece ó and has lost none of its power in the
years since its publication.
His novella ìSpanish Bayonetî is also worth a look. Inverting many of
the earlier adventure-tale tropes that had made him famous, BenÈt
creates a tale, set in Florida just before the American Revolution,
that is breathtakingly bizarre and brutally realistic.
The largest single strike against BenÈt is that he occasionally
careened into sentimentalism. This criticism has some merit. Some of
his more lackluster tales, such as ìThe Bishopís Beggar,î seem to be a
collection of cliches.
But I know of no great writer who didnít have a few stories they should
have written differently. Hemingway and Faulkner, for example, both had
their poor efforts ó and we should not hold BenÈtís few failed
narratives against him.
BenÈt is an emotional writer and that was both his flaw and virtue. His
understanding of the ìwhyî behind peopleís actions and the raw power of
our hearts is unparalleled.
However far he has slipped from memory, much of his work is now in the
public domain or remains widely available through used bookstores.
Locally, the Readerís Corner has a good selection of his old works,
while even Amazon showed many of the used prose and poetry volumes
available for a dirt-cheap price.
A quick online search reveals that many of his best poems are available
for anyone to read ó ìNightmare, with Angelsî and ìLitany for
Dictatorshipsî chief among them.
The last stanzas of the latter poem came to my mind again after 9/11. They continue to make their way to my lips every so often.
He wrote them for another war, in another time. Let us hope they do not become our epitaph:
ìWe thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragonís teeth.
Our children know and suffer the armed men.î
ï
David Forbes, ho writes book reviews and covers news for the Daily
Planet, may be reached at marauderAVL-at-hotmail.com. Suggestions and
comments are always welcome.
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