Understanding Nobel Prize: 1934---1936

[Ben Jackson]

The Nobel Literature Prize for 1934 and 1936 was awarded to Pirandello and Eugene O'Neill. The 1935 Prize wasn't awarded the committee felt there wasn't a suitable candidate.

The 1935 Nobel Prize shortlist consisted of Czech writer Karel Capek, dismissed for political reasons (as Capek reasons against Hitler. Per Hallstrom, who was a supporter of Nazism, though he didn't welcome anti-semitic aspect of Nazism, convinced committee members not to award writers who spoke against Hitler), Miguel Unamuno, one of the finest Spanish writer known for existentialist works, was dismissed for "abstract ideas in his oeuvre," John Masefield, was dismissed for "uneven works," G K Chesteron, an English writer who was praised for his poems by the committee, was dismissed for "doubts over the religious non-fictional works like St Francis of Assisi and the biography of Jesus," Roger Martin Du Gard, praised for The Thibaults, but the committee waited for Du Gard to complete the other volumes. Paul Without was dismissed for "esoteric poetry." Without the religious publications of G K Chesterton, there's big chance that Chesterton could have won the Nobel for that year. With these evaluations, the committee decided not to award the Prize.

The 1934 Prize's shortlist consisted of Silanpaa, Pirandello and Gugliemo Ferrero. The committee waited for more productions from Silanpaa, though the committee praised Meek Heritage. Ferrrero was dismissed because of the committee's "lack of interest in awarding the prize to non-fiction areas." Pirandello's works like Six Characters and One, no one, and One Hundred Thoudsand was hailed by the committee, hence the committee's decision in awarding Pirandello.

The 1936 prize was a tight contest between Freud, who was nominated by his friend, Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland, and Eugene O'Neill. Freud, rejected several times for Nobel Prize for Medicine, was dismissed for "sick and distorted imagination." Paul Valery was dismissed for "exclusive and obscure poetry." O'Neil receiving praises from the committee for works like Anna Christie and Mourning Becomes Electra, was awarded the Prize.

 

[Verkhovensky]

When you read some of those explanations, sometimes you have to ask yourself "why do I even care about those idiots' opinions".

It's interesting how they twice decided against awarding authors who dedicated a bulk of their work to crime fiction (Chesterton with Father Brown stories, Graham Greene with his espionage thrillers) chiefly because of their religion. If one of them have won in the past, we wouldn't have the discussions about chances of someone writing crime fiction ever getting the Prize.

Paul Without

I don't seem to find this author by googling, are you sure you didn't misspell his name?

Also re: Čapek, he also wrote a lot of genre fiction, detective stories, of course science fiction (introduced the word robot*), fairy tales etc. I own his satirical novel The War with the Newts which is considered his masterpiece but haven't yet read it.

* the word was invented by his brother, Karel wanted to call them laboři. I doubt the word would stick.

 

[Ben Jackson]

When you read some of those explanations, sometimes you have to ask yourself "why do I even care about those idiots' opinions".

It's interesting how they twice decided against awarding authors who dedicated a bulk of their work to crime fiction (Chesterton with Father Brown stories, Graham Greene with his espionage thrillers) chiefly because of their religion. If one of them have won in the past, we wouldn't have the discussions about chances of someone writing crime fiction ever getting the Prize.


I don't seem to find this author by googling, are you sure you didn't misspell his name?

Also re: Čapek, he also wrote a lot of genre fiction, detective stories, of course science fiction (introduced the word robot*), fairy tales etc. I own his satirical novel The War with the Newts which is considered his masterpiece but haven't yet read it.

* the word was invented by his brother, Karel wanted to call them laboři. I doubt the word would stick.

It's Paul Valery. The "without" is a typo error.

 

[Verkhovensky]

It's Paul Valery. The "without" is a typo error.

Oh, so another case of a great writer dissmissed for some idiotic reason.

 

[tiganeasca]

Oh, so another case of a great writer dissmissed for some idiotic reason.

Reading this series of threads, that is the one thing that keeps happening. Over and over. The reasons given are so frequently downright stupid that it renders the decisions themselves somewhat dubious.

 

[Benny Profane]

The 1936 prize was a tight contest between Freud, who was nominated by his friend, Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland, and Eugene O'Neill. Freud, rejected several times for Nobel Prize for Medicine, was dismissed for "sick and distorted imagination."

LOL!!! According to SA, would it be Psychology "a sick and distorted" science?

 

[Benny Profane]

Untill today, I can't believe that Paul Valéry didn't win the Nobel Prize.
His essays about Poetry are the pillars of Modern Poetry's style.
It's unbelieveble! When SA cogitate to laureate him in 1945, he passed away. It was the same with Jaroslav Vrchlický, for example.

 

[Leseratte]

Reading this series of threads, that is the one thing that keeps happening. Over and over. The reasons given are so frequently downright stupid that it renders the decisions themselves somewhat dubious.

And it is not so good for the reputation of SA that all these decisions are made public. If that is the most important literature award in the world what are the others?

 

[Corswandt]

Also re: Čapek [...] I own his satirical novel The War with the Newts which is considered his masterpiece but haven't yet read it.

You should. It's really fun - it includes many pastiches/parodies of all sorts of journalistic and official writing, all of them spot on and often very amusing in themselves.

 

[errequatro]

I get not giving it to Chesterton (minor writer, really, imho)... but dismissing Valery or.... lol, Unamuno, for abstract ideas.... is ludicrous. Unamuno was/is a giant. These opinions are a disappointment. A joke, really.

 

[Ben Jackson]

The committee were looking for candidates that weren't modernistic in outlook like Valery, Claudel and Unamuno, instead they lolked for candidates with universal interest (with broad appeal and read everywhere), hence Galsworthy, Silanpaa and Du Gard. As for Freud, I think it was just an excuse not to award non-fiction writers.

 

[Leseratte]

The committee were looking for candidates that weren't modernistic in outlook like Valery, Claudel and Unamuno, instead they lolked for candidates with universal interest (with broad appeal and read everywhere), hence Galsworthy, Silanpaa and Du Gard. As for Freud, I think it was just an excuse not to award non-fiction writers.

It also seems to me that the SA sometimes avoids too controversial candidates. Freud´s theories about sexuality caused some serious polemics in his time.

 

[Ben Jackson]

The Nobel Literature Prize in 1934 was awarded to Luigi Pirandello "for his bold and indigenous revival of dramatic and scenic art." 31 names were suggested.

Shortlisted Writers and their works

Luigi Pirandello
Shoot
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Naked Masks
All for the Best
Right You Are If You Think You Are
One Hundred and One Tales
Rules of the Game
Henry IV

Eugene O'Neill (1936 winner)
Mourning Becomes Electra
Anna Christie
Moon of the Carribbes
Hairy Ape
Emperor Jones
Strange Interlude
Desire Under the Elms
Ah Wilderness

Frans Emil Silanpaa (1939 winner)
Meek Heritage
Maid Silja
Hiltur and Ragmar
Life and Sun

Guglielmo Ferrero
Young Europe
Greatness and Decline of Rome
Between Two Worlds
Speeches to the Deaf

First Time Nominees
Luigi Pirandello
Eugene O'Neill
Roger Martin DuGard
Francisco Garcia Calderon
Ventura Garcia Calderon
Ole Halleby
Ewald Sundberg
Hans Henrik Holm
Franz Karl Ginzeky
Stefan Zielinski
Jarl Hemmer
Jean Schlumberger
Maria Martel de Patricio

Nominees nominated by Swedish Academy
Antonio Oliviera De Correira, Sarveppali Radhakrishnan, Edwin Robinson (Hjalmar Hammarskjold)
Francisco Garcia Calderon (Nobel Committee)
Frans Silanpaa, Bertel Gripenberg, Jarl Hemmer (Verner Heidenstam)
Eugene O'Neill (Martin Lamm)
Ramon Menedez Pidal (Per Hallstrom)
Joseph Bedier (Henrik Schuck)
Roger Martin DuGard, Jean Schlumberger (Torsten Faglevist)

Nominees that become Laureate
Frans Emil Silanpaa
Johannes Jensen
Eugene O'Neill


This year, the major debate was between two experimental playwrights which opposed the criteria of Wide Interest: Pirandello and O'Neill. The problem of avant-gardism which featured in Osterling's epoch was reserved here. But O'Neill was rejected by Per Hallstrom, Chairman and Permanent Secretary because "of his excessive experiemmation and clumsy treatment of abstract ideas and uneven quality." While Pirandello's works are considered experimental, Hallstrom praised Six Characters in Search of an Author as a major European theatrical piece.

 

[Benny Profane]

^^ António Correia de Oliveira (Corrêa D'Oliveira), @Ben Jackson.

And thank you again for your survey.

 

[Leseratte]

The Nobel Literature Prize for 1934 and 1936 was awarded to Pirandello and Eugene O'Neill. The 1935 Prize wasn't awarded the committee felt there wasn't a suitable candidate.

The 1935 Nobel Prize shortlist consisted of Czech writer Karel Capek, dismissed for political reasons (as Capek reasons against Hitler. Per Hallstrom, who was a supporter of Nazism, though he didn't welcome anti-semitic aspect of Nazism, convinced committee members not to award writers who spoke against Hitler), Miguel Unamuno, one of the finest Spanish writer known for existentialist works, was dismissed for "abstract ideas in his oeuvre," John Masefield, was dismissed for "uneven works," G K Chesteron, an English writer who was praised for his poems by the committee, was dismissed for "doubts over the religious non-fictional works like St Francis of Assisi and the biography of Jesus," Roger Martin Du Gard, praised for The Thibaults, but the committee waited for Du Gard to complete the other volumes. Paul Without was dismissed for "esoteric poetry." Without the religious publications of G K Chesterton, there's big chance that Chesterton could have won the Nobel for that year. With these evaluations, the committee decided not to award the Prize.

The 1934 Prize's shortlist consisted of Silanpaa, Pirandello and Gugliemo Ferrero. The committee waited for more productions from Silanpaa, though the committee praised Meek Heritage. Ferrrero was dismissed because of the committee's "lack of interest in awarding the prize to non-fiction areas." Pirandello's works like Six Characters and One, no one, and One Hundred Thoudsand was hailed by the committee, hence the committee's decision in awarding Pirandello.

The 1936 prize was a tight contest between Freud, who was nominated by his friend, Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland, and Eugene O'Neill. Freud, rejected several times for Nobel Prize for Medicine, was dismissed for "sick and distorted imagination." Paul Valery was dismissed for "exclusive and obscure poetry." O'Neil receiving praises from the committee for works like Anna Christie and Mourning Becomes Electra, was awarded the Prize.

No wonder that Freud was dismissed several times. He was too innovative!

 

[Ben Jackson]

The Nobel Literature Prize wasn't awarded in 1935 but there were discussions concerning the candidate.

Shortlisted Writers

Jarl Hemmer
Voices
Realm of the Rye
Fool in Faith

Roger Martin Du Gard
The Thibaults
Jean Barois
The Postman
Confidence Africaine

Miguel Unamuno
Mist
Life of Don Quixote and Sancho
Tragic Sense of Life
Agony of Christianity
Three Exemplary Novels
St Emmanuel the Good Martyr

GK Chesterton
Father Brown Stories
Man Who Was Thursday
Everlasting Man
Orthodoxy
Heretics
Napoleon of Notting Hill
St Francis

John Masefield
Salt-Water Ballads
Ballads
Sonnets and Poems
Tale of Troy

Frans Emil Silanpaa (1939 winner, same books evaluated in 1934 plus Way of a Man)

Karel Capek
R.U.R
Makropulous Affair
Absolute at Large
Hordubal
Ordinary Life
Meteor
Apocryphal Tales

James Frazer (same books evaluated in 1925 plus Taboos and Perils of the Souls, Myths and Origins of Fire, Creation and Evolution)

Joseph Bedier
Tristan and Isolde

First Time Nominees
James Cousins
Violet Clifton
Emile Male
Sven Erik Lonborg
Gudmundas Kamban
Elise Richter
Deszbo Szabo
GK Chesterton
Edvarts Virza
Shaul Tchernichovsky
John Masefield
Jules Romains
Victor Manuel Rendon
Miguel Unamuno

Nominees nominated by Swedish Academy Member and Nobel Laureates
James Cousins (Rabindranath Tagore)
Eugene O'Neill (Martin Lamm)
Kostas Palamas (Verner Heidenstam)
Gudmundur Kamban (Begnt Hasselman)
HG Wells (Sinclair Lewis)
Jules Romains (Frederik Book)
Jarl Hemmer (Hjalmar Hammarskjold)
Franz Karl Ginzeky, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Hjalmar Hammarskjold)
Roger Martin Du Gard (Anders Osterling, Torgen Fogelquist)
GK Chesterton (Torgen Fogelquist)

Nominees that became Laureates
Johannes Jensen (1944 winner)
Frans Silanpaa (1939 winner)
Eugene O'Neill (1936 winner)

Nominated female writers
Elise Richter
Violet Cliffton

 

[Ben Jackson]

Concerning James Frazer, his major work "Golden Bough" was debated, but he was rejected because "today not just outdated but fruitless in historical religions through highly specific examination." Henrik Schuck, in his report on Joseph Bedier "considered leading Romantic which presence, through version of Tristan and Isolde, possess cumbersome representtation of art which hardly possess literary worth." Hallstrom concerning Silanpaa expressed "relative reserved due to his mastery in visual characterization over actual strength," and also in Silanpaa's countryman Hemmer "pleading to allocate in return." After the committee expressed their admiration over DuGard's The Thibaults (suggesting they wait for the finally volume), their observations over Chesterton and Masefield religious biographies and artistic uneveness respectively, Unamuno was rejected not because his prose "possessed mathematical abstraction, giving it a complex human approach with pure ideas which phsyicialty simulate same dramatic abstract inclination," but that his Drama Don Juan "depicted sexual figure," and that "ideal philosophy which immortality's longing of human only in the requirement which sustain individuality and that emphasis of individual validity drive the German idealism." With these observations, the Nobel for this year was postponed, its prize money reinvested in the Foundation.

 

[Verkhovensky]

I think I already pondered about how the whole debate concerning the literary validity of "genre" literature (crime in particular) wouldn't exist if Chesterton and Greene weren't basically snubbed because of the Anti-Catholic sentinement in the Academy.

Greene is in particular eggrarious, as his "Catholic" books are all but "orthodox" in how they present their heroes /spoilers ahead/ (a priest who is a drunkard and has a child, a devout guy who has an affair and kills himself in the end - at the end of the book, a priest literally asserts that despite commiting a grave sin such as suicide, that character was a good person and won't suffer damnation)...
It's not like he was writing some judging pamphlets.

I don't know much about Chesterton, only read some bits of his work and know that his style is considered brilliant. Borges really loved him.

 

[Ben Jackson]

The Nobel Literature Prize for 1936 was awarded to Eugene O'Neill "for the power, honesty and deep-frlt emotions of dramatic works which embody an original concept of tragedy." It was announced on 12th Novemeber 1937. 27 writers were suggested.

Shortlisted Writers
Eugene O'Neill (same books evaluated in 1934)

Paul Valery (same books evaluated in 1930 and 1931 plus Varieties lll)

Sigmund Freud
Interpretations of Dreams
Essays on Sexuality
Beyond Pleasure Principles
Studies of Hysteria
Lectures in Psychology
Mourning and Melancholia

Ludwig Klages
Of Cosmogenic Eros
On Nature of Consicuousness
Science of Character

First Time Nominees
Asis Dormet
Hari Banerjee
Erica Von Handel Mazzeti
Sigmund Freud
Alfred Edward Evershed
Ludwig Klages
Cecile Tormay
Hans Fallada
Arvid Morne
Georges Duhamel

Nominees nominated by Swedish Academy and Nobel Laureates
Sigmund Freud (Romain Rolland)
Roger Martin DuGard (Torgen Fogelquist)
Hans Fallada (Martin Lamm)
Eugene O'Neill (Henrik Schuck)
Jarl Hemmer, Georges Duhamel, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Hjalmar Hammarskjold)

Nominees that would become Laureates
Johannes Jensen (1944 winner)
Frans Emil Silanpaa (1939 winner)

Erica Von Handel Mazzeti was the only female writer nominated this year.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Sigmund Freud's candidature was heavily discussed when Romain Rolland, close friend and Nobel Laureate nominated him for this year. After been rejected in the science categories, Rolland felt Freud's works was more in line to get recognition in the field of Literature. The Committee regarded the influence of Freud, but was rejected because his works "which explored masculine and feminine sexuality and dream tangle, while masked in simple and symbolic language, was sick and distorted in imagination, the result of his therapeutic method resulting indisputably monotonous and meagre." Committee expression concerning Ludwig Klages, German philosopher known for his aphroistic style of writing, output "united with the strictest objectivity, but in the field wouldn't be beneficial in corresponding to the requirement which had resulted in difficulty in weighing the choice of Bergson. The skeptical restraint in the ideal gesture doesn't satisfy in our time with the spirit of the Nobel," which is another interpretation of the Committee's blantant refusal in recognizing writers from fields other than literature. Eugene O'Neill, after been rejected two years before, observation was carried out by Per Hallstrom who expressed that "complex, deeply pondered assessment of American newcomer by distinguished old world intellectual," but praised the O'Neill dark vision and abundant flow of passionate, pregnant world, which never ends in slumbering energy of his plots and yearning to attain monumental simplicity which becomes characteristic in ancient drama Mourning Becomes Electra. Hallstrom also praised O'Neill's versatility and "great perceptiveness which provided distinct artistry, the experimentation encountering the same understating as that of Pirandello, here recognized in its effective and essential medium in dramatic art. And even though Mourning Becomes Electra's reminsicent of ancient Greek drama of Aeschylus, his other works convey sometimes depressing impression." Henrik Schuck observed that "O'Neill plays suffer a questionable aesthetics but nevertheless great literary craft. Mourning Becomes Electra shares steak tragic spirit as fee modern plays have reached. And Anna Christie's simple and marvellous which shows influence of Strindberg, and simply poetic is the little imaginative play Emperor Jones." With Paul Valery rejected for the Prize for his inaccessible poetry, O'Neill was awarded the prize.

Edit: forgot to add that Karel Capek, in 1935, report was conducted by Academy expert on Slavic Literature Anton Kalgren "Capek's works shares partly blame for the connecting with looseness of writers which mindedness in his philosophical matters act against sedateness in the point of description. The hope in Capek's development to a notable writer is insufficient. However his flourishing imagination and inventiveness nevertheless appeals the committee to propose a watching period."