Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-19
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
JOHN BROWNS. BODY. Stephen
Vincent Benet. Doubleday, Doran
I. G.. NJ.

JOHN BROWNS. BODY. Stephen
Vincent Benet. Doubleday, Doran
& Co.
Every Schoolboy knows, in the rough
at least, that of which this story is
made-is so Spendidly made. Con-
tributing TO its substance are history.
biography, geography, and of these he
knows something. More than once has
he traced the long East and West line
That split the country into two battling
zones, the North and the South. In
Vulnerable times has he mumbled the
civil War In It's causes and course. in
It's immediate issues and lingering
anlmositieS of effect. He has read the
lives OF its leaders--the life of Lincoln.
OF Grant, of Lee. Out of it he has
gathered the sum of fact which the
rest of us possess. Such Is, by and
large, the substance of this authors
knowledge of the Civil War.
Yet, facing John Browns Body" and
the common historic account of the war.
now different are they in impact and
impression! Both true. But one stands
ike a huge bulk, mountain of SCARED
stone. The other, that same block
maybe, has been carved to life and
action, to significance that runs deep
within 1t. Here is hewn, free and out
standing, the immemorial pattern of
mans achievement and failure. of prim-
1--we ferocity and acquired benevolence
running alongside. The difference be-
tween the two in effect is, of course, due
to the TACT that the poet is working by
way OF art, while the majority is fum-
ping with even the most obvious of
facts.
poet has. to be sure. more freedom
IN choosing his point of view than has
the professional historian. Stephen
Benet makes inspired use of such
privilege. Looking upon the Civil War
as "noie, ne makes 1t seems to me,
iresn translation of it. In his mind
. .lse Dasic elements step out here from
aie maze and confusion of war in gen.
srsi, inere Is. first. the slave. injustice
fanaticism fieshed. There is last the
war of the young men. The first stands
without question. Nobody claims scran
Oh righteousness for slavery The fanatic
moreover, now and then, the AGENT
required to flre to action the generalIv
lesltating collective body. This was trua
IN Cromweli's day. 1t was true in the
!ine OF Savonarola, as it has been in
oener crises OF history. AS II was in
Soln Browns hour at Harpers Ferry
once more--the tramp. tramp tranp"
OF the Civil War was made bv the faet
Vi lne young men-as it is in every war
Inese three make the paramount
equal concern of the poem.
HaVing chosen standing ground In
LronC OF the event itself. Stephen Benet
oegins to carve out his vision-the slave
sne fanatic, the young fighters of the
Civil War. "a ''ie
But wait minute, as he does to
pause In petition before the theme, in
vohnng Whatever gods there be in this
eea1 Iaho OF many strains and moods,
OF many powers and promises. Amer.
ican muse, whose strong and diverse
neart so many men have tried to nm
oerStand, opens the Invocation a
poem OF deep sincerity and great beauty
MAKING his way toward the theme
IN mind. the author re-creates the slave
snip: with its Bible-reading captain
sincerely pious man across whose
neart no shadow of personal wrong
uoing mas passed. There is nowhere
else IN the poem a more piercinply
dramatic picture than that made by
The SLAYER" One sees the SUFFERING
creatures in the hold and. smells them
and suffocates with them as they easp for
ar and then die as many of them do
Ihere'S no one from Salem to the
Guinea coast can say they lose as few
as DO, mumbled the captain when
one and another we're slipped of into
the sea. A terrible picture that makes
one marvel again at man, at the over
lord man.
After this comes the body of the
poem-John Browns body, housing
a l.
nerce as the Salem witch fireS-a soul
fitful and erratic in it's Civilizations and
open demonstrations. Maybe YOU will
md a better understanding of John
Brown than the one projected here. or
a truer reincarnation of the fanatic.
any fanatic, than this one. I doubt It.
IL IS distinctive as work of art alone.
1t Is more outstanding even in its eff
1ect upon the reader, in its immediate
erect OF recoil and pity worked togeth-
err. In Its wonder over the truth of
human conduct, in its dismay over the
limits set to mans mind and will All
OF these effects rise here out of the
reading of John Brown, who was but
the distilled essence of the fanaticism
which at that hour held many parts of
the North in its imprisoned and I'M
reasoning grip. and this. naturally, re-
fiected itself in the South in equal pas
sion and hatred.
The clear splendor of John Browns
setting forth in this epic rises, in part,
from Its fidelity to fact, in part also
from the authors strict economy in
the use of his tools of art. But most
OF all does 1t come from the poets
power to identify the spirit of John
Brown with the new day that has risen
since the Civil War. The new day is
like John Brown in its energy, its dar-
ing emprise, its fiber of endurance, its
stole stand before the bludgeonings of
the swift fate of current life and event.
Lies Wondering in the grave-but his
soul goes marching on"
Another point, a very important one,
in this epic Of the Civil War is that its
author is little concerned with the
marching of armies under impressive
leaders, with the stories of defeat and
victory. with the mass content Of the
war. This has already been done many
times-times enough. What does he
do instead to deliver the war over to
readers? He selects boy or so from
the North, a group of young men from
the South. With these he builds, first
up there and then down here. the land
which on both sides was so well loved
that all were ready to fight for their
part of 1t. Out of sun and cloud. the
stretch of field either under cotton or
corn, the run of the streams, the songs
of the birds-out of these he built the
native strip which-God knows how
gets into the soul Of the one living
here or there and becomes part of his
blood and his life. The story sets out
so easily with Jack Ellyat and his
setter, Ned, rustling through the
Autumn leaves in the sharp New Eng
land sunlight. Jack talks, a little, to
himself and to Ned, but the talk Is
enough to show how he feels about
many things-neighborh things. and
what cities are like, and If there is
anything at all in the talk about
war coming on. An improbable
eventuality, that last. because nothing
ever does happen in this world. Rhyth-
mic and slow this revery of the boy, and