'John Brown's Body' Exhumed
In the foyer of the John Brown Museum hangs a large-lettered quote from Stephen Vincent Benét: "You can weigh John Brown's body well enough/But how and in what balance weigh John Brown?" It's one of the first things visitors see when they walk through the entrance doors. It's also one of the last things they see when they leave. The same quote hangs in another room, beside the exit.
The words come from Benét's long poem, "John Brown's Body," published in 1928. They capture the complicated legacy of the man who tried to start the Civil War about a year and a half before it actually erupted. Was Brown a hero of black freedom or a bloodthirsty terrorist? Americans have weighed the question since 1859. This weekend, Harpers Ferry National Historic Park plans to observe the sesquicentennial of Brown's disastrous raid.
Events will include a series of tributes to Benét's poem—a half-forgotten piece of middlebrow literature whose own legacy is as ambiguous, in its way, as Brown's. On Friday, local high-school students will perform a drama based on "John Brown's Body." On Saturday, jazz musician Delfeayo Marsalis (brother of Branford and Wynton) will debut a new composition inspired by Benét's work. And on Sunday, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and daughter of RFK—will introduce readings from the poem.
Benét was born in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1898, when memories of Brown were about as fresh as the Kennedy and King assassinations are today. He grew up an Army brat, the son of an ordnance officer. This itinerant upbringing took Benét to California, Georgia and New York. The experience helped him cultivate a national perspective that saw beyond sectional divides.
When Benét's father wasn't overseeing arsenals, he encouraged the literary talents of his children. The poet's older brother, William Rose Benét, would go down in history as the compiler of a reference volume that still carries his name. On many bookshelves, resting beside "Webster's Dictionary," "Roget's Thesaurus" and "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" is a copy of "Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia." An older sister, Laura Benét, was a poet in her own right...
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The words come from Benét's long poem, "John Brown's Body," published in 1928. They capture the complicated legacy of the man who tried to start the Civil War about a year and a half before it actually erupted. Was Brown a hero of black freedom or a bloodthirsty terrorist? Americans have weighed the question since 1859. This weekend, Harpers Ferry National Historic Park plans to observe the sesquicentennial of Brown's disastrous raid.
Events will include a series of tributes to Benét's poem—a half-forgotten piece of middlebrow literature whose own legacy is as ambiguous, in its way, as Brown's. On Friday, local high-school students will perform a drama based on "John Brown's Body." On Saturday, jazz musician Delfeayo Marsalis (brother of Branford and Wynton) will debut a new composition inspired by Benét's work. And on Sunday, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and daughter of RFK—will introduce readings from the poem.
Benét was born in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1898, when memories of Brown were about as fresh as the Kennedy and King assassinations are today. He grew up an Army brat, the son of an ordnance officer. This itinerant upbringing took Benét to California, Georgia and New York. The experience helped him cultivate a national perspective that saw beyond sectional divides.
When Benét's father wasn't overseeing arsenals, he encouraged the literary talents of his children. The poet's older brother, William Rose Benét, would go down in history as the compiler of a reference volume that still carries his name. On many bookshelves, resting beside "Webster's Dictionary," "Roget's Thesaurus" and "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" is a copy of "Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia." An older sister, Laura Benét, was a poet in her own right...