Nobel Prize in Literature | 1902
René François Armand Prudhomme (
March 16, 1839-
September 6, 1907), French poet and essayist
winner,
Nobel Prize in Literature,
1901
Sully Prudhomme was once an important figure in
French literature and hailed as the successor of
Victor Hugo, but he is largely ignored and little read or written about today, in
English or in French. He has utterly vanished from the
canon, to the point where I can’t find a single poem of his in any of the dozens of anthologies I own (not even in
The Penguin Book of French Poetry 1820-1950). Even at the turn of the century, the choice of Sully Prudhomme for the Nobel caused some debate, as he hadn’t published much poetry after
1888.
Sully Prudhomme was born to a
middle class Parisian family. His father, a shopkeeper, died when he was two, and he would later append his father’s name “Sully” to his surname “Prudhomme”. He grew up with his mother in the household of his uncle and he graduated from the
Lycée Bonaparte. A serious eye problem prevented him from studying the sciences, so he took a job as a clerk at the
Schneider-Creuzot foundry and later studied law and worked in the office of a
notary.
Inspired by a love affair gone poorly, he began to write poetry, which was well recieved by his literary circle of friends in the Conference La Bruyère, an important studeant society. He began to be published in journals, such as the influential
Le parnasse contemporain and was encouraged by the elder poet
Leconte de Lisle. His first book of poetry,
Stances et poémes, was published in
1865 and very well recieved, especially “La vase brisé" (“The Broken Vase”, where the vase was a symbol of a broken relationship), which would become his best known poem.
From the beginning, Sully Prudhomme was identified with a group of poets called the
Parnassians, named after Mount
Parnassus, home of the
Muses in
Greek mythology. The Parnassians were reacting against the excesses of
Romanticism and sought to restore
classical values like elegance, balance, objectivity, precision, and harmony to poetry. Sully Prudhomme’s was noted for these qualities as well, though he did not rigidly adhere to them, as much of his early work deals with personal feelings in an emotional tone that has been influenced by Romanticism.
1870 was not a good year for Sully Prudhomme, and it cause a profound change in his work. His mother, aunt, and uncle all died and he had a
stroke which would cause him problems with
paralysis the rest of his life. He served in the
Garde Mobile during the
Franco-Prussian War, which was the basis for his collection
Impressions de Guerre of the same year.
All these traumas caused him to become more and more reclusive as time went on. His work moved away from the personal towards wrestling with philosophical and
metaphysical themes, at times decending into the
didactic. Important works include:
“Les destins” (
1872), where a fire in a
Spanish church is the centerpiece of an examination of the stuggle between good and evil
“Le zénith” (
1876), an
elegy for three
balloonists killed in an ascent which examines mankind’s quest for truth
La justice (
1878), a series of dialogues about the nature of
justice
Le bonheur (
1888), a 4000 line “scientific-philosophic poem” about a
Faustian journey through the afterlife in search of knowledge and love.
After 1888, he devoted himself to
prose in the areas of
literature and
philosophy. He became even more of a recluse as his paralysis worsened, which did not prevent his reptuation as a writer from increasing. He was elected to the
French Academy in
1881 and won the first Nobel Prize in literature in
1901. He donated the prize money to a French writer’s association in order to help budding poets publish their first volumes. He died a lifelong
bachelor in his villa in
Châtenay-Malabry, near Paris.
Bibliography:
Poetry:
Stances et poemes, 1865.
Les epreuves, 1866.
Les solitudes: poesies, A. Lemerre (Paris), 1869.
Les destins, 1872.
La France, 1874.
Les vaines tendresses, 1875.
Le zenith (poem), published in journal Revue des deux mondes, 1876.
La justice (poem), 1878.
Poesie, 1865-88, A. Lemerre, 1883-88.
Le prisme, poesies diverses, A. Lemerre (Paris), 1886.
Le bonheur (poem), 1888.
Epaves, A. Lemerre, 1908.
Prose:
Oeuvres de Sully Prudhomme (poetry and prose), 8 volumes, A. Lemerre, 1883-1908.
Que sais-je? (philosophy), 1896.
Testament poetique (essays), 1901.
La vraie religion selon Pascal (essays), 1905.
Journal intime: lettres-pensee (diary), A. Lemerre, 1922.
Sources:
Gale Contemporary Authors Online, from the Gale Biography Resource Center database
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/prudhomm.htm
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1901/prudhomme-bio.html
http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/572_43.html