26 pages • 52 minutes read
Stephen Vincent BenétBy the Waters of Babylon
Fiction | Short Story | YA | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Stephen Vincent Benét
Stephen Vincent Benét was born in Pennsylvania on July 22, 1898, to a family with two other children, both of whom also went on to become writers. He lived on several US Army posts throughout his childhood. He published his first poetry collection, Five Men and Pompey, when he was 17 years old. Benét studied at Yale University, but he paused his education to serve during World War I. After the war, Benét finished his education at Yale, earning a master’s degree in English. He became nationally known as a poet, and in his era, his works had a broader readership than those of Wallace Stevens or Robert Frost. He also studied at the Sorbonne in France, where he met and married Rosemary Carr. Among Benét’s best-known works are the short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and the narrative poem John Brown’s Body. Benét published over 17 collections of prose and verse. He died in New York City at age 44 in March 1943.
Benét’s works frequently address history and war, perhaps influenced by his upbringing in a military family. He wrote “By the Waters of Babylon” after learning that fascist groups from Nazi Germany bombed the Spanish town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. They destroyed the town, killing at least one third of its population in a test of Adolf Hitler’s blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” tactics. Some of the images in the story from the Great Burning reference the mustard gas, chemical weapons, and aerial bombs used during World War I. The setting is reminiscent of post-bombing Guernica.
Literary Context: Postapocalyptic Literature
Postapocalyptic literature deals with the end of the world and what happens after cultures and societies collapse. Apocalyptic literature has ancient predecessors. One of the first recorded texts is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem that includes stories about the world ending in a flood and people’s efforts to rebuild afterward. The biblical story of Noah and the destruction of the world by flooding also carry this theme. Norse mythology includes similar themes in the stories of Ragnarok, and apocalyptic themes run throughout the New Testament.
Apocalyptic and postapocalyptic content dates to the earliest surviving texts, but 20th- and 21st-century texts with these themes are often reactions to world events, such as wars or natural disasters. These stories reflect humans’ fears of what will happen because of these events or when they die. They also have moral implications, such as warning countries against getting involved in destructive wars or urging people toward environmentalism. Sometimes, as in the ending of this short story, postapocalyptic literature has a hopeful tone that emphasizes humanity’s resilience and strength in the face of drastic change.
Benét published “By the Waters of Babylon” in 1937, nearly 20 years after the end of World War I and only two years before the start of World War II. The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is often seen as a precursor to the second world war, as it included soldiers from multiple countries and its nationalist troops were backed by Italy and Germany’s fascist regimes. The bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica heightened tensions in Europe and provided a horrifying example of annihilation by modern weapons; the town’s devastation inspired Benét to write “By the Waters of Babylon.” The author, and the rest of the world, were reckoning with the proliferation of violence in prior wars and the intensifying tensions that suggested another war on a global scale was imminent. His story depicts the destruction that could have befallen the United States if the wars were fought on American soil and outlines the fears of many Americans as they watched unrest rise across the Atlantic Ocean.
