1937 Nobel Prize in Literature
{{Infobox award
| name = 20px 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature
| subheader = Roger Martin du Gard
| awarded_for =
| presenter = Swedish Academy
| year = 1901
| website = {{oweb|https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1937/summary/}}
| holder_label = 1937 laureate
| holder =
| image = Roger Martin du Gard 1937.jpg
| caption = "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel-cycle Les Thibault."
| host =
| date = {{plainlist|
- 12 November 1937 (announcement)
- 10 December 1937
(ceremony)
}}
| location = Stockholm, Sweden
| previous = 1936
| main = Nobel Prize in Literature
| next = 1938
}}
The 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French author Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel-cycle Les Thibault".{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1937/summary/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1937 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
Laureate
{{Main|Roger Martin du Gard}}
Roger Martin du Gard was awarded for the then seven-part (a final eight part was later published) novel cycle Les Thibault (1922-1940), that chronicles a family of the bourgeoisie from the turn of the 19th century to World War I. His other work includes the novel Jean Barois (1913) that deals with the conflict between the Roman catholic faith of his childhood and the scientific materialism of his maturity and the impact of the Dreyfus affair on the protagonist, sketches of French country life in Vielle France ("Old France", 1933), a study of the author and his friend André Gide (Notes sur André Gide, 1951), and dramas.{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-Martin-du-Gard |title=Roger Martin du Gard |publisher=britannica.com }}
=''Les Thibault''=
The multi-volume roman-fleuve Les Thibault influenced the Nobel Committee in awarding Du Gard the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature. It follows intricately the fortunes of two brothers, Antoine and Jacques Thibault, from their upbringing in a prosperous Catholic bourgeois family to the end of the First World War. The novel was admired by authors like André Gide, Albert Camus, Clifton Fadiman, and Georg Lukacs. In contrast, Mary McCarthy called it "a work whose learned obtuseness is, so far as I know, unequaled in fiction."The New Republic, 26 April 1939
Deliberations
=Nominations=
Roger Martin du Gard had been nominated for the prize five times since 1934.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=5951 |title=Nomination archive - Roger Martin du Gard |date=21 May 2024 }} In 1937, the Nobel committee received 62 nominations for 37 writers including Frans Emil Sillanpää (awarded in 1939), Paul Valéry, Paul Claudel, Kostis Palamas, António Correia de Oliveira, Bertel Gripenberg, Karel Capek and Georges Duhamel. Fourteen were newly nominated such as Stijn Streuvels, Jean Giono, Johan Falkberget, Valdemar Rørdam and Albert Verwey. Most nominations were submitted for the Danish author Johannes V. Jensen (awarded in 1944) with seven nominations. There were seven female nominees namely Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício, Ricarda Huch, Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, Maila Talvio, Maria Jotuni, Cecile Tormay and Sally Salminen.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/list.php?prize=4&year=1937 |title=Nomination archive |date=April 2020 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
The authors Lou Andreas-Salomé, J. M. Barrie, Ellis Parker Butler, Aleksey Chapygin, Ralph Connor, Francis de Croisset, Alberto de Oliveira, John Drinkwater, Florence Dugdale, Edward Garnett, Antonio Gramsci, Frances Nimmo Greene, Ivor Gurney, Elizabeth Haldane, Élie Halévy, W. F. Harvey, Ilya Ilf, Attila József, H. P. Lovecraft, Don Marquis, H. C. McNeile, Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj, Rudolf Otto, Mittie Frances Point (known as Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller), Horacio Quiroga, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo and Yevgeny Zamyatin died in 1937 without having been nominated for the prize. The Dutch poet Albert Verwey died before the only chance to be rewarded.
| class="sortable wikitable mw-collapsible"
|+ class="nowrap" | Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize |
|
! scope="col" | No. ! scope="col" | Nominee ! scope="col" | Country ! scope="col" | Genre(s) ! scope="col" | Nominator(s) |
| 1
|René Béhaine (1880–1966) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |novel, short story, essays |{{unbulleted list|Charles Bruneau (1883–1969)|Émile Lasbax (1888–1966)|François Dumas (1861–1948)}} |
| 2
|Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874–1938) |{{flag|Kingdom of Yugoslavia|name=Yugoslavia}} |novel, short story |{{unbulleted list|Albert Bazala (1877–1947)|Gavro Manojlović (1856–1939)}} |
| 3
|Paul Claudel (1868–1955) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |poetry, drama, essays, memoir |Peter Hjalmar Rokseth (1891–1945) |
| 4
|António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960) |{{flag|Estado Novo (Portugal)|name=Portugal}} |poetry |Luís da Cunha Gonçalvez (1875–1956) |
| 5
|Karel Čapek (1890–1938) |{{flag|Czechoslovakia}} |drama, novel, short story, essays, literary criticism |Josef Šusta (1874–1945){{efn|group=notes|Karel Čapek was also nominated by 9 other professors of history or literature at Prague University.}} |
| 6
|Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) |{{flag|Estado Novo (Portugal)|name=Portugal}} |poetry, essays |António Baião (1878–1961) |
| style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"|7
| style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"|Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) | style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"|{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} | style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"|novel, drama, memoir | style="background:gold;white-space:nowrap"|Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) |
| 8
|Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism |{{unbulleted list|Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)|Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941)}} |
| 9
|Olav Duun (1876–1939) |{{flag|Norway}} |novel, short story |Helga Eng (1875–1966) |
| 10
|Johan Falkberget (1879–1967) |{{flag|Norway}} |novel, short story, essays |Fredrik Paasche (1886–1943) |
| 11
|Jean Giono (1895–1970) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |novel, short story, essays, poetry, drama |{{unbulleted list|Léon Wencelius (1900–1971){{efn|group=notes|Several thousand other nominations of Jean Giono were by ineligible nominators.}}|Marcel Cohen (1884–1974)}} |
| 12
|Bertel Gripenberg (1878–1947) |{{flag|Finland}} |poetry, drama, essays |Magnus Hammarström (1893–1941) |
| 13
|Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948) |{{flag|Denmark}} |history, essays, poetry |William Norvin (1878–1940) |
| 14
|Jarl Hemmer (1893–1944) |{{flag|Finland}} |poetry, novel |Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 15
|Ricarda Huch (1864–1947) |{{flag|Nazi Germany|name=Germany}} |history, essays, novel, poetry |{{unbulleted list|Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)|Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945)|Fritz Strich (1882–1963)|27 professors{{efn|group=notes|27 professors from the universities of Bern, Basel, Geneva and Zürich in Switzerland, and Groningen, Netherlands.}}}} |
| 16
|Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) |{{flag|Denmark}} |novel, short story, essays |{{unbulleted list|Vilhelm Andersen (1864–1953)|Peter Skautrup (1896–1982)|Ernst Frandsen (1894–1952)|Francis Bull (1887–1974)|Jens Thiis (1870–1942)|Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen (1881–1977)|Carl Adolf Bodelsen (1894–1978)}} |
| 17
|Maria Jotuni (1880–1943) |{{flag|Finland}} |drama, novel, short story, essays |Viljo Tarkiainen (1879–1951) |
| 18
|Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) |{{flag|Nazi Germany|name=Germany}} |philosophy, poetry, essays |Wilhelm Pinder (1878–1947) |
| 19
|Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1878–1962) |{{flag|Federal State of Austria|name=Austria}} |novel, short story, poetry, drama |Heinz Kindermann (1894–1985) |
| 20
|Maurice Magre (1877–1941) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |novel, poetry, drama |{{unbulleted list|Jules Marsan (1867–1939)|Joseph Gheusi (1870–1950)}} |
| 21
|Bijay Chandra Majumdar (1861–1942) |{{flag|British Raj|name=India}} |essays |Sen Satyendranath (1909–?) |
| 22
|John Masefield (1878–1967) |{{flag|United Kingdom}} |poetry, drama, novel, short story, essays, autobiography |Anders Österling (1884–1981) |
| 23
|Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) |{{flag|Soviet Union}} |novel, essays, poetry, drama |Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937) |
| 24
|Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) |{{flag|Kingdom of Greece|name=Greece}} |poetry, essays |Nikos Athanasiou Veēs (1882–1958) |
| 25
|Jules Payot (1859–1940) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |pedagogy, philosophy |Alfred Baudrillart, C.O. (1859–1942) |
| 26
|William Pickard (1889–1973) |{{flag|United Kingdom}} |novel, poetry, essays |Arthur Bernard Cook (1868–1952) |
| 27
|Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) |{{flag|British Raj|name=India}} |philosophy, essays, law |Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 28
|Valdemar Rørdam (1872–1946) |{{flag|Denmark}} |poetry, essays |Ejnar Thomsen (1897–1956) |
| 29
|Sally Salminen (1906–1976) |{{flag|Finland}} |novel, essays, autobiography |Albert Engström (1869–1940) |
| 30
|Arnold Schering (1877–1941) |{{flag|Nazi Germany|name=Germany}} |essays |Ilmari Krohn (1867–1960) |
| 31
|Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964) |{{flag|Finland}} |novel, short story, poetry |{{unbulleted list|15 Finnish professors and Academy members{{efn|group=notes|The nomination was made in 9 separate letters by 15 Finnish university professor and Academy members.}}|Juho Kusti Paasikivi (1870–1956)|Yrjö Hirn (1870–1952)}} |
| 32
|Stijn Streuvels (1871–1969) |{{flag|Belgium}} |novel, short story |{{unbulleted list|5 professors from Belgian Universities|64 university lecturers from Germany|Leo Goemans (1869–1955)|Hans-Friedrich Rosenfeld (1899–1993)}} |
| 33
|Maila Talvio (1871–1951) |{{flag|Finland}} |novel, short story, translation |Ilmari Krohn (1867–1960) |
| 34
|Shaul Tchernichovsky (1875–1943) |{{flag|Soviet Union}} |poetry, essays, translation |Joseph Klausner (1874–1958) |
| 35
|Cécile Tormay (1875–1937) |{{flag|Kingdom of Hungary|name=Hungary}} |novel, short story, essays, translation |{{unbulleted list|Jenö Pintér (1921–1988)|János Horváth (1878–1961)|Károly Pap (1897–1945)|János Hankiss (1893–1959)|Fredrik Böök (1883–1961)}} |
| 36
|Paul Valéry (1871–1945) |{{flag|French Third Republic|name=France}} |poetry, philosophy, essays, drama |Gabriel Hanotaux (1853–1944) |
| 37
|Albert Verwey (1865–1937) |{{flag|Netherlands}} |poetry, essays, translation |{{unbulleted list|Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck (1887–1954)|Cornelis Gerrit Nicolaas de Vooys (1873–1955)|Nicolaas Anthony Donkersloot (1902–1965)}} |
Prize decision
A majority of the members of the Swedish Academy's Nobel committee advocated a prize to the Flemish Belgian writer Stijn Streuvels, but ultimately it was Roger Martin du Gard who received the majority of the votes from the members of the Academy.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/themes/the-nobel-prize-in-literature-nominations-and-reports-1901-1950/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature - Nominations and reports 1901-1950 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}
Notes
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References
{{Reflist}}