《战争与统帅》《古代军队记录》《罗马帝国的生活》，是引起强有力的普利策奖史诗《约翰·布朗的遗体》作者兴趣的最初部分书籍；早年，斯蒂芬·文森特·贝尼特（Stephen Vincent Benet，1898—1943）在驻防全国各地的军队里长大，当他的父亲、美军陆军上校詹姆斯·沃尔克·贝内特，背诵诸如布朗的诗行时，这个什么都读的幼小读者便专注地倾听着：“我、乔里斯和他跳上马镫，/我飞奔，克里克飞奔，我们三个都飞奔。”
贝内特家在西班牙（米诺卡岛）和美国世世代代都是军人。陆军准将斯蒂芬·文森特·贝尼特，诗人的爷爷，是美国军队军械署署长，首席大法官福尔摩斯曾经说：“我读的第一本署此姓名的书是一本《军法专著》，第二本，很多年后，是一本史诗！”
斯蒂芬·文森特·贝尼特像他著名的姊妹威廉·露丝·贝尼特和劳拉·贝尼特一样，在很小时就开始写作。他12岁时他的诗集在圣尼古拉斯联盟出版。17岁时他的戏剧独白的书《五个男人和庞培》问世。当他仍在耶鲁时，第二本书就出版了。威廉·里昂·菲尔普斯，他在耶鲁的一位老师，描述他是一个受到普遍欢迎、容光焕发的健谈者。他是《青春》的一位副主编，这是一本校际诗刊，主张“死亡使诗歌自由”；他是耶鲁文学杂志的主席，获得过三个诗歌奖；他的耶鲁朋友里包括菲利普·巴里、阿奇博尔德·麦克利什和桑顿·王尔德。
Stephen Vincent Benét (/bəˈneɪ/ bə-NAY; July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, Library of America selected his story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales, edited by Peter Straub.
Life and career
Early life
Benét was born on July 22, 1898 in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania to James Walker Benét, a colonel in the United States Army. His grandfather and namesake led the Army Ordnance Corps from 1874 to 1891 as a brigadier general and served in the Civil War. His paternal uncle Laurence Vincent Benét was an ensign in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War and later manufactured the French Hotchkiss machine gun.
Around the age of ten, Benét was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy. He graduated from Summerville Academy in Augusta, Georgia and from Yale University, where he was "the power behind the Yale Lit", according to Thornton Wilder, a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. He also edited and contributed light verse to the campus humor magazine The Yale Record. His first book was published when he was aged 17 and he was awarded an M.A. in English upon submission of his third volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis. He was also a part-time contributor to Time magazine in its early years.