1948 Nobel Prize in Literature

1948 Nobel Prize in Literature
Thomas Stearns Eliot
"for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."
Date	4 November 1948 (announcement) 10 December 1948 (ceremony)
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Presented by	Swedish Academy
First awarded	1901
Website	Official website
← 1947 · Nobel Prize in Literature · 1949 →

The 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to British-American poet Thomas Stearns Eliot (pen name, T. S. Eliot) (1888–1965) "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."^[1] Eliot is the fourth British (born in the United States) recipient of the prize after John Galsworthy in 1932.

Laureate

T.S. Eliot was a highly influential poet known for works such as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1940). His belief that poetry should aim to represent the complexities of modern civilization made him one of the most daring innovators of 20th century poetry. He also wrote essays and plays such as Murder in the Cathedral (1935).^[2]

Deliberations

Nominations

T.S. Eliot was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on seven occasions, the first time in 1945. In 1948, three nominations for Eliot were submitted which eventually led to him being awarded the prize.^[3]

In total, the Nobel committee received 45 nominations for 32 writers including André Malraux, Georges Duhamel, Winston Churchill (awarded in 1953), Toyohiko Kagawa, Boris Pasternak (awarded in 1958), Nikolai Berdyaev, Mikhail Sholokov (awarded in 1965), Shmuel Yosef Agnon (awarded in 1966), Angelos Sikelianos, Mark Aldanov, and Arnulf Øverland.^[4] Seven of the nominees were nominated first-time among them George Santayana, Zalman Shneur, George Macauley Trevelyan, Halldór Laxness (awarded in 1955), and Riccardo Bacchelli. Three of the nominees were women: Marie Under, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette and Dorothy Canfield Fisher.^[4]

The 1929 Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann was unconventionally nominated for a second prize by two members of the Swedish Academy.^[5] The authors Antonin Artaud, Charles A. Beard, Georges Bernanos, Alice Brown, Wilbur Lucius Cross, Osamu Dazai, André Fontainas, Susan Glaspell, Frederick Philip Grove, Victor Ido, Klara Johanson, Aldo Leopold, Monteiro Lobato, Emil Ludwig, Claude McKay, Thomas Mofolo, Na Hye-sok, Sextil Pușcariu, Antonin Sertillanges, Montague Summers, and Marcelle Tinayre died in 1948 without having been nominated for the prize. Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev died months before the announcement.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize

No.	Nominee	Country	Genre(s)	Nominator(s)
1	Mark Aldanov (1886–1957)	Soviet Union ( Ukraine)  France	biography, novel, essays, literary criticism	Ivan Bunin (1870–1953)
2	Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887–1970)	Israel	novel, short story	Martin Lamm (1880–1950)
3	Eugène Baie (1874–1964)	Belgium	law, essays	Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Académie Royale de Belgique
4	Riccardo Bacchelli (1891–1985)	Italy	novel, drama, essays	Accademia dei Lincei
5	Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948)	Soviet Union ( Ukraine)	philosophy, theology	Alf Nyman (1884–1968)
6	René Béhaine (1880–1966)	France	novel, short story, essays	Maurice Mignon (1882–1962)
7	Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958)	United States	novel, short story, pedagogy, essays	David Baumgardt (1890–1963)[a]
8	Winston Churchill (1874–1965)	United Kingdom	history, essays, memoir	Birger Nerman (1888–1971) Oscar Wieselgren (1886–1971) Einar Löfstedt (1880–1955) Birger Ekeberg (1880–1968) Nils Ahnlund (1889–1957) Harald Hagendahl (1889–1986)
9	Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873–1954)	France	novel, short story	Claude Farrère (1876–1957)
10	Benedetto Croce (1866–1952)	Italy	history, philosophy, law	Accademia dei Lincei
11	Teixeira de Pascoaes (1877–1952)	Portugal	poetry	João António Mascarenhas Júdice (1898–1957)
12	Georgios Drossinis (1859–1951)	Greece	poetry, novel, short story	Geōrgios Oikonomos (1882–1951)
13	Georges Duhamel (1884–1966)	France	novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism	Georges Lecomte (1867–1958) Jean-Marie Carré (1887–1958)
14	Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965)	United States  United Kingdom	poetry, essays, drama	Justin O'Brien (1906–1968) Oscar Wieselgren (1886–1971) Donald Alfred Stauffer (1902–1952)
15	Johan Falkberget (1879–1967)	Norway	novel, short story, essays	Andreas Hofgaard Winsnes (1889–1972) Sigrid Undset (1882–1949)
16	Franz Hellens (1881–1972)	Belgium	novel, poetry, literary criticism	Anders Österling (1884–1981)
17	Toyohiko Kagawa (1888–1960)	Japan	essays	Sven Hedin (1865–1952)
18	Rudolf Kassner (1873–1959)	Austria	philosophy, essays, translation	Theophil Spoerri (1890–1974)
19	Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)	Iceland	novel, short story, drama, poetry	Jón Helgason (1899–1986) Einar Sveinsson (1906–1973) Sigurður Nordal (1886–1974)
20	André Malraux (1901–1976)	France	novel, essays, literary criticism	Justin O'Brien (1906–1968)
21	Thomas Mann (1875–1955)	Germany	novel, short story, essays	Einar Löfstedt (1880–1955) Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961)
22	Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968)	Spain	philology, history	Gunnar Tilander (1894–1973)
23	Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894–1958)	United Kingdom	drama, novel, essays, poetry	Otto Funke
24	Arnulf Øverland (1889–1968)	Norway	poetry, essays	Sigurd Erixon (1888–1968) Andreas Hofgaard Winsnes (1889–1972)
25	Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)	Soviet Union	poetry, novel, translation	Martin Lamm (1880–1950)
26	Jules Romains (1885–1972)	France	poetry, drama, screenplay	Alfred Jolivet (1885–1966)
27	George Santayana (1863–1952)	Spain  United States	philosophy, essays, poetry, novel	Justin O'Brien (1906–1968)
28	Zalman Shneour (1887–1959)	Soviet Union ( Belarus)  United States	poetry, essays	Joseph Klausner (1874–1958)
29	Mikhail Sholokhov (1905–1984)	Soviet Union	novel	Nobel Committee (unspecified)
30	Angelos Sikelianos (1884–1951)	Greece	poetry, drama	Axel Waldemar Persson (1888–1951) Elin Wägner (1882–1949)
31	George Macauley Trevelyan (1876–1962)	United Kingdom	biography, autobiography, essays, history	Nils Ahnlund (1889–1957)
32	Marie Under (1883–1980)	Soviet Union ( Estonia)	poetry	Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953)

Award ceremony speech

In his award ceremony speech on 10 December 1948, Anders Österling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said of Eliot: "His career is remarkable in that, from an extremely exclusive and consciously isolated position, he has gradually come to exercise a very far-reaching influence. At the outset he appeared to address himself to but a small circle of initiates, but this circle slowly widened, without his appearing to will it himself. Thus in Eliot's verse and prose there was quite a special accent, which compelled attention just in our own time, a capacity to cut into the consciousness of our generation with the sharpness of a diamond."^[6]

Notes

References

External links

• Award Ceremony speech nobelprize.org
• List of all nominations for the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature nobelprize.org

This page was last edited on 7 April 2024, at 15:53