1903 Nobel Prize in Literature
- 8 October 1903 (announcement)
- 10 December 1903
(ceremony)
← 1902 · | Nobel Prize in Literature | · 1904 → |
The 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature was the third prestigious literary prize based upon Alfred Nobel's will, which awarded to the Norwegian poet and politician Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910) "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit." The prize was announced in October 08, 1903 and was given in December 10, 1903 at Stockholm.[1]
Laureate
Bjørnson was a Norwegian multifaceted literary person who became one of the original members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, where he sat from 1901 to 1906.[2] He wrote poetry, drama and lyrical poetry. He worked for periods as theater director in both Bergen and Oslo, and he was active both politically and as a journalist. In his early works he depicted peasant life in the Norwegian countryside. This national romanticism was also found in his poetry throughout his career, even if he also wrote both realistic and symbolic dramas. Bjørnson's musical version of the poem "Ja, vi elsker dette landet" became Norway's national anthem. He is also considered to be one of the four great Norwegian writers, alongside Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland.[3]
Deliberations
Nominations
The Swedish Academy received four nominations – two nominations each in 1902 and 1903 – for Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson before getting awarded.
In total, the Nobel Committee received 43 nominations for 25 writers in 1903, including repeated nominations for the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (four nominations) and Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (one nomination), and with new nominations for the English writers Algernon Charles Swinburne and Rudyard Kipling (one nominations each). Kipling would later be awarded in 1907.[4] French writer Anatole France and Fredrik Wulff were the first nominators to nominate a collective group of writers purposely for a shared prize. France nominated Tolstoy, Brandes, and Maeterlinck in one nomination,[5] whereas Wulff nominated Paris and Mistral together.[6]
The authors Ada Ellen Bayly, Nicolaas Beets, Eugenio María de Hostos, Girolamo de Rada, Frederic Farrar, George Gissing, William Ernest Henley, Ernest Legouvé, Vicente Fidel López, Evgeny Markov, Mary Anne Sadlier, Joseph Henry Shorthouse, Joseph Skipsey,Carl Snoilsky, Richard Henry Stoddard, Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin, Wilhelm von Polenz, Sydir Vorobkevych, Otto Weininger, Josefina Wettergrund died in 1903 without having been nominated for the prize.
No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alexander Baumgartner, S.J. (1841–1910) | Switzerland | poetry, history | Knud Karl Krogh-Tonning (1842–1911) |
2 | Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910) | Norway | poetry, novel, drama, short story |
|
3 | Georg Brandes (1842–1927) | Denmark | literary criticism, essays |
|
4 | Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) | Italy | poetry, literary criticism, biography, essays | Vittorio Puntoni (1859–1926) |
5 | François Coppée (1842–1908) | France | poetry, novel, short story, drama | Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) |
6 | Robert Langton Douglas (1864–1951) | Great Britain | history, essays | Thomas Hodgkin (1831–1913) |
7 | José Echegaray Eizaguirre (1832–1916) | Spain | drama | Daniel de Cortázar Larrubia (1844–1927) |
8 | Iwan Gilkin (1858–1924) | Belgium | poetry |
|
9 | Carl Friedrich Glasenapp (1847–1915) | Germany | biography |
|
10 | Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) | Norway | drama | Lorentz Dietrichson (1834–1917) |
11 | Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) | Great Britain | short story, novel, poetry | Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) |
12 | Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) | Belgium | drama, poetry, essays | Anatole France (1844–1924) |
13 | Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo (1856–1912) | Spain | history, philosophy, philology, poetry, translation, literary criticism |
|
14 | George Meredith (1828–1909) | Great Britain | novel, poetry | Nobel Prize Committee of the Society of Authors |
15 | Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914) | France | poetry, philology |
|
16 | Lewis Morris (1833–1907) | Great Britain | poetry, songwriting, essays |
|
17 | Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1832–1903) | Spain | poetry, drama, law |
|
18 | Gaston Paris (1839–1903) | France | history, poetry, essays | Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930) |
19 | Paul Sabatier (1858–1928) | France | history, theology, biography | Carl Bildt (1850–1931) |
20 | Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916) | Russia ( Poland) | novel | Hans Hildebrand (1842–1913) |
21 | Albert Sorel (1842–1906) | France | history, essays | Albert Vandal (1853–1910) |
22 | Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) | Great Britain | poetry, drama, literary criticism, novel | Nobel Prize Committee of the Society of Authors |
23 | Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) | Russia | novel, short story, drama, poetry |
|
24 | Charles Wagner (1852–1918) | France | theology, philosophy | Gabriel Jean Séailles (1852–1922) |
Prize decisions
In 1903, four writers were shortlisted during the Nobel committee's deliberations: Maurice Maeterlinck, Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Georg Brandes.[citation needed] Brandes was dismissed for his agnosticism while Maeterlinck was dismissed for being "too obscure, literary motifs of such embarrassing and bizarre nature."[citation needed] Ibsen, on the other hand, was regarded as "too old and burn-out."[citation needed] It was then believed by the Academy that awarding Bjørnson on the basis of his character of having agitated for Norway's independence from Sweden would prove vital later on.[7][page needed][8]
References
- ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1903 nobelprize.org
- ^ The Norwegian Nobel Committee Since 1901 nobelprize.org
- ^ Grøndahl, Carl Henrik; Tjomsland, Nina (1978). The Literary masters of Norway: with samples of their works. Tanum-Norli. ISBN 978-82-518-0727-2.
- ^ Nomination archive – 1903 nobelprize.org
- ^ Nomination archive nobelprize.org
- ^ Nomination archive nobelprize.org
- ^ Gustav Källstrand Andens Olympiska Spel: Nobelprisets historia, Fri Tanke 2021
- ^ Helmer Lång, Hundra nobelpris i litteratur 1901-2001, Symposion 2001, p.26 (in Swedish)
External links
- Award ceremony speech by C.D. af Wirsén nobelprize.org
- v
- t
- e
- 1901: Sully Prudhomme
- 1902: Theodor Mommsen
- 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
- 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray
- 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz
- 1906: Giosuè Carducci
- 1907: Rudyard Kipling
- 1908: Rudolf Eucken
- 1909: Selma Lagerlöf
- 1910: Paul Heyse
- 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck
- 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann
- 1913: Rabindranath Tagore
- 1914
- 1915: Romain Rolland
- 1916: Verner von Heidenstam
- 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan
- 1918
- 1919: Carl Spitteler
- 1920: Knut Hamsun
- 1921: Anatole France
- 1922: Jacinto Benavente
- 1923: W. B. Yeats
- 1924: Władysław Reymont
- 1925: George Bernard Shaw
- 1926: Grazia Deledda
- 1927: Henri Bergson
- 1928: Sigrid Undset
- 1929: Thomas Mann
- 1930: Sinclair Lewis
- 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously)
- 1932: John Galsworthy
- 1933: Ivan Bunin
- 1934: Luigi Pirandello
- 1935
- 1936: Eugene O'Neill
- 1937: Roger Martin du Gard
- 1938: Pearl S. Buck
- 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944: Johannes V. Jensen
- 1945: Gabriela Mistral
- 1946: Hermann Hesse
- 1947: André Gide
- 1948: T. S. Eliot
- 1949: William Faulkner
- 1950: Bertrand Russell
- 1951: Pär Lagerkvist
- 1952: François Mauriac
- 1953: Winston Churchill
- 1954: Ernest Hemingway
- 1955: Halldór Laxness
- 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez
- 1957: Albert Camus
- 1958: Boris Pasternak
- 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo
- 1960: Saint-John Perse
- 1961: Ivo Andrić
- 1962: John Steinbeck
- 1963: Giorgos Seferis
- 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award)
- 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov
- 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs
- 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias
- 1968: Yasunari Kawabata
- 1969: Samuel Beckett
- 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- 1971: Pablo Neruda
- 1972: Heinrich Böll
- 1973: Patrick White
- 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson
- 1975: Eugenio Montale
- 1976: Saul Bellow
- 1977: Vicente Aleixandre
- 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- 1979: Odysseas Elytis
- 1980: Czesław Miłosz
- 1981: Elias Canetti
- 1982: Gabriel García Márquez
- 1983: William Golding
- 1984: Jaroslav Seifert
- 1985: Claude Simon
- 1986: Wole Soyinka
- 1987: Joseph Brodsky
- 1988: Naguib Mahfouz
- 1989: Camilo José Cela
- 1990: Octavio Paz
- 1991: Nadine Gordimer
- 1992: Derek Walcott
- 1993: Toni Morrison
- 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe
- 1995: Seamus Heaney
- 1996: Wisława Szymborska
- 1997: Dario Fo
- 1998: José Saramago
- 1999: Günter Grass
- 2000: Gao Xingjian
- 2001: V. S. Naipaul
- 2002: Imre Kertész
- 2003: J. M. Coetzee
- 2004: Elfriede Jelinek
- 2005: Harold Pinter
- 2006: Orhan Pamuk
- 2007: Doris Lessing
- 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio
- 2009: Herta Müller
- 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa
- 2011: Tomas Tranströmer
- 2012: Mo Yan
- 2013: Alice Munro
- 2014: Patrick Modiano
- 2015: Svetlana Alexievich
- 2016: Bob Dylan
- 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro
- 2018: Olga Tokarczuk
- 2019: Peter Handke
- 2020: Louise Glück
- 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- 2022: Annie Ernaux
- 2023: Jon Fosse
- 2024: to be announced