Poésies de Sully Prudhomme. 1866 - 1872: Les épreuves. - Les écuries d'Augias. - Croquis italiens. - Les solitudes. - Impressions de la guerre

by Sully Prudhomme

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1877 edition by Alphonse Lemerre, Paris.

Genres: Nobel Prize, Poetry, Fiction

253 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme 16 March 1839 – 6 September 1907) was a French poet and essayist, winner of the first 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 intent 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.
Prudhomme 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.
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 Parnassian 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.
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.
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.

Reviews

[Piotr]

j'aime quand les parnassiens ne font pas les parnassiens

[Del Trigo]

destacar sobre todo el poema "Dulce venganza".

[Silvio Villa]

"Commovente, una sensibilità che scavalca i quasi 150 anni di divario dai nostri tempi. Molto interessanti le poesie sulla guerra franco-prussiana del 1870"

[Eloo]

Magistral ! J'ai pris une claque littéraire immense ! C'est devenu mon livre de chevet et le livre à emporter sur une île déserte immédiatement après le 1er poème.

[CB]

I wondered why a Nobel Laureate did not have even a SINGLE published translation. After finding a small selection of ten poems on Bartleby, I know why. They're terrible. Saccharine, simplistic, cliche, derivative.

https://www.bartleby.com/library/inde...

[Mara]

Rene Sully Prudhomme was the first winner to the Nobel Prize in Lit.