John Brown's Body (poem)
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John Brown's Body (1928) is an epic American poem written by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, 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. Benet's poem covers the history of the American Civil War in a classical style and is considered the only great American epic. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929.
The poem was performed on Broadway in 1953 in a staged dramatic reading starring Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, and Raymond Massey, and directed by Charles Laughton.
