Sully Prudhomme
| Sully Prudhomme | |
|---|---|
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| Born | René François Armand Prudhomme 16 March 1839 Paris, France |
| Died | Error: Need valid death date (first date): year, month, day Châtenay-Malabry, France |
| Occupation | Poet and essayist |
| Nationality | French |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Literature 1901 |
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Sully Prudhomme was the pen name of René Armand François Prudhomme (French: [syli pʁydɔm]; 16 March 1839 – 6 September 1907), a French poet and essayist. He was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901.
Born in Paris, Prudhomme originally studied to be an engineer, but turned to philosophy and later to poetry; he declared it as his intention to create scientific poetry for modern times. In character sincere and melancholic, he was linked to the Parnassus school, although, at the same time, his work displays characteristics of its own.
Contents
Early life
Prudhomme was born to a French shopkeeper.[1] He attended the Lycée Bonaparte, but eye trouble interrupted his studies. He worked for a while in the Creusot region for the Schneider steel foundry, and then began studying law in a notary's office. The favourable reception of his early poems by the Conférence La Bruyère (a student society) encouraged him to begin a literary career.
Writing
His first collection, Stances et Poèmes ("Stanzas and Poems", 1865), was praised by Sainte-Beuve. It included his most famous poem, Le vase brisé. He published more poetry before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. This war, which he discussed in Impressions de la guerre (1872) and La France (1874), permanently damaged his health.
During his career, Prudhomme gradually shifted from the sentimental style of his first books towards a more personal style which unified the formality of the Parnassus school with his interest in philosophical and scientific subjects. The inspiration was clearly Lucretius's De rerum natura, for the first book of which he made a verse translation. His philosophy was expressed in La Justice (1878) and Le Bonheur (1888). The extreme economy of means employed in these poems has, however, usually been judged as compromising their poetical quality without advancing their claims as works of philosophy. He was elected to the Académie française in 1881. Another distinction, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, was to follow in 1895.
After, Le Bonheur, Prudhomme turned from poetry to write essays on aesthetics and philosophy. He published two important essays: L'Expression dans les beaux-arts (1884) and Réflexions sur l'art des vers (1892), a series of articles on Blaise Pascal in La Revue des Deux Mondes (1890), and an article on free will (La Psychologie du Libre-Arbitre, 1906) in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale.
Nobel Prize
The first writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (given "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect"), he devoted the bulk of the money he received to the creation of a poetry prize awarded by the Société des gens de lettres. He also founded, in 1902, the Société des poètes français with Jose-Maria de Heredia and Leon Dierx.
Death
At the end of his life, his poor health (which had troubled him ever since 1870) forced him to live almost as a recluse at Châtenay-Malabry, suffering attacks of paralysis while continuing to work on essays. He died suddenly on 6 September 1907, and was buried at Père-Lachaise in Paris.
Bibliography
Poetry
- 1865: Stances et poèmes
- 1866: Les épreuves
- 1868: Croquis italiens
- 1869: Les solitudes: poésies [Les écuries d’Augias]
- 1872: Les destins
- 1874: La révolte des fleurs
- 1874: La France
- 1875: Les vaines tendresses
- 1876: Le zénith, previously published in Revue des deux mondes
- 1878: La justice
- 1865–1888: Poésie
- 1886: Le prisme, poésies diverses
- 1888: Le bonheur
- 1908: Épaves
Prose
- 1883–1908: Œuvres de Sully Prudhomme (poetry and prose), 8 volumes, A. Lemerre
- 1896: Que sais-je? (philosophy)
- 1901: Testament poétique (essays)
- 1905: La vraie religion selon Pascal (essays)
- 1922: Journal intime: lettres-pensée
Notes
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- Boutroux, Émile (1911). "Sully Prudhomme: Poète et Philosophe," II, Revue Bleue, 49e Année, No. 19/20, 1911.
- Lecigne, Constantin (1908). Du Dilettantisme à l'action, Vol. 3. Paris: P. Lethielleux.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sully Prudhomme. |
- Gale Contemporary Authors Online, from the Gale Biography Resource Center database
- Petri Liukkonen. "Sully Prudhomme". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Archived from the original on 4 July 2013.
- Sully Prudhomme – Biography at www.nobel.se
- britannica.com
- Poesies.net: Sully Prudhomme
- Poesies.net: Le Zénith
- Works by Sully Prudhomme at Project Gutenberg
- Lua error in Module:Internet_Archive at line 573: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Works by Sully Prudhomme at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
| Cultural offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Seat 24 Académie française 1881–1907 |
Succeeded by Henri Poincaré |
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- 1839 births
- 1907 deaths
- Writers from Paris
- French poets
- French essayists
- Members of the Académie française
- Nobel laureates in Literature
- French Nobel laureates
- Symbolist poets
- Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
- Male essayists
- French male poets
- 19th-century poets
- 19th-century male writers
- 19th-century essayists
