 1915 Nobel Prize in Literature | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romain Rolland | ||||
 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings." | ||||
| Date |
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| Location | Stockholm, Sweden | |||
| Presented by | Swedish Academy | |||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | Official website | |||
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The1915 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French authorRomain Rolland (1866–1944) "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings."[2] The prize was awarded the following year on November 9, 1916 and he is the third Frenchman who became a Nobel recipient for the literature category.
Rolland was a mystic and pacifist who studied spirituality,yoga, andIndian philosophy. He established the International Biogentic Society in 1929 to advance harmony, sustainability, and peace. Through communication, he spread the idea of the "oceanic feeling," which refers to the sensation of being at one with the universe, to people likeSigmund Freud and others. Regardless of genre, Rolland's literature centers on humanity's pursuit of pleasure, purpose, and the truth. Jean Christophe Krafft and Anette Rivière, the main protagonists in the novel seriesJean-Christophe (1904–1912) andL'Ame enchantée ("The Enchanted Soul", 1922–1933) are in a struggle for both their physical and spiritual existence. In order to define the style of the collection of works, Rolland coined the term "roman-fleuve," which translates to "river-novel." He argued for the democratization of theater in his essay "The People's Theatre."[3][4]
In1936 Rolland nominated the Austrian neurologistSigmund Freud for the same category which led the academy'sNobel Committee to a great deal of discussion.[5][1]
TheSwedish Academy received 26 nominations for 22 writers. Among them was the newly-nominatedRomain Rolland who was awarded the following year after only three nominations.[6][7] Other newly nominated authors were British explorerCharles Montagu Doughty and German poetFerdinand Avenarius. The Italian writerGrazia Deledda – the only female nominee – received the highest number of nominations.[6]
The authorsMary Elizabeth Braddon,Thomas Alexander Browne, Saturnino Calleja,Luigi Capuana,Luigi Capuana,Gaston Arman de Caillavet,Remy de Gourmont,Francisco Giner de los Ríos,Tevfik Fikret,James Elroy Flecker,Justus Miles Forman,Elizabeth Boynton Harbert,Elbert Hubbard,Charles Klein,Aurelio Tolentino,Lucy Bethia Walford,Booker T. Washington,Ellen Gould White, andJulia Ditto Young died in 1915 without having been nominated for the prize.
| No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Juhani Aho (1861–1921) |  Russia(  Finland) | novel, short story | Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919) |
| 2 | Ferdinand Avenarius (1856–1923) |  Germany | poetry |
|
| 3 | René Bazin (1853–1932) |  France | novel | Harald Hjärne (1848–1922) |
| 4 | Henri Bergson (1859–1941) | France | philosophy | Per Hallström (1866–1960) |
| 5 | Paul Bourget (1852–1935) | France | novel, short story, literary criticism, essays | Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919) |
| 6 | Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) |  Italy | novel, short story, essays |
|
| 7 | Charles Montagu Doughty (1843–1926) |  Great Britain | poetry, essays | Herbert Warren (1853–1930) |
| 8 | Anatole France (1844–1924) | France | poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism |
|
| 9 | Karl Adolph Gjellerup (1857–1919) |  Denmark | poetry, drama, novel | Harald Hjärne (1848–1922) |
| 10 | Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948) | Denmark | history, essays, poetry | |
| 11 | Angel Guimerà y Jorge (1845–1924) |  Spain | drama, poetry |
|
| 12 | Willem Kloos (1859–1938) |  Netherlands | poetry, essays, literary criticism | Per Hallström (1866–1960) |
| 13 | Josef Svatopluk Machar (1864–1942) |  Austria-Hungary(  Czechoslovakia) | poetry, essays, novel | professors inPrague |
| 14 | Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) | Russia | novel, essays, poetry, drama | Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919) |
| 15 | Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) | Spain | novel, short story, drama, essays | Per Hallström (1866–1960) |
| 16 | Romain Rolland (1866–1944) | France | novel, drama, essays | Henrik Schück (1855–1947) |
| 17 | Salvador Rueda Santos (1857–1933) | Spain | poetry, essays | professors inMadrid |
| 18 | Carl Spitteler (1845–1924) |  Switzerland | poetry, essays | Jonas Fränkel (1879–1965) |
| 19 | Émile Verhaeren (1855–1916) |  Belgium | poetry, essays | Christen Collin (1857–1926) |
| 20 | Ernst von der Recke (1848–1933) | Denmark | poetry, drama | Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919) |
| 21 | Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) |  Sweden | novel, short story, poetry | Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930) |
| 22 | William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) | Ireland | poetry, drama, essays | Per Hallström (1866–1960) |
In 1916, the Nobel committee proposed that the prize for 1915 should be awarded to the Spanish authorBenito Pérez Galdós. But ultimately, the members of the Swedish Academy voted for a prize toRomain Rolland instead of Pérez Galdós. A politically controversial choice as Rolland at the time ofWorld War I had made himself unpopular in both Germany and his native France.[8]
