 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eugene O'Neill | ||||
 "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy" | ||||
| Date |
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| Location | Stockholm, Sweden | |||
| Presented by | Swedish Academy | |||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | Official website | |||
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The1936Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American playwrightEugene O'Neill (1888–1953) "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy". He is the second American to become a literature laureate afterSinclair Lewis in1930 and the only American playwright awarded the prize.
Influenced by therealist playwrightsChekhov,Strindberg andIbsen, Eugene O'Neill is regarded as the foremost American dramatist of the 20th century. His plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society who struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. He was awarded thePulitzer Prize three times, first forBeyond the Horizon (1920), his debut play, followed byAnna Christie in 1922 andStrange Interlude in 1928.Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) and the posthumousLong Day's Journey into Night is regarded as twomasterpieces in a long string of plays.[2][3]
Eugene O'Neill was nominated for the prize three times (1934,1935, and 1936).[4]In 1936 the Nobel committee received 47 nominations for 27 writers includingPaul Valéry,António Correia de Oliveira,Miguel Unamuno,Kostis Palamas,Olav Duun,Jarl Hemmer,Karel Capek,Benedetto Croce,Roger Martin du Gard (awarded in1937) andJohannes V. Jensen (awarded in1944). Ten were newly nominated such asGeorges Duhamel,Ludwig Klages,Sigmund Freud,Cécile Tormay,Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti andArvid Mörne. Most nominations were submitted for the Finnish authorFrans Emil Sillanpää (awarded in1939) with five nominations, including two nominations suggesting a shared prize with Jarl Hemmer andArvid Mörne respectively. Only two women were nominated namely Cécile Tormay Tormay and Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti.[5]
The authorsJuliette Adam,Jacques Bainville,Mateiu Caragiale,James Churchward,Eugène Dabit,Adolf de Herz,Teresa de la Parra,Ramón del Valle-Inclán,Stefan Grabiński,Federico García Lorca,A. E. Housman,M. R. James,Kitty Lee Jenner,Dezső Kosztolányi,Mikhail Kuzmin,Mourning Dove,Elizabeth Robins Pennell,Kristína Royová,Moritz Schlick,Jan Jacob Slauerhoff,Oswald Spengler,Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (known as Premchand),Heinrich Rickert,Ferdinand Tönnies,Lidia Veselitskaya andZhou Shuren (known as Lu Xun) died in 1936 without having been nominated for the prize.
| No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hari Mohan Banerjee (d. 1960) |  India | essays | Devadatta R. Bhandarkar (1875–1950) |
| 2 | António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960) |  Portugal | poetry | Luís da Cunha Gonçalvez (1875–1956) |
| 3 | Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) |  Italy | history, philosophy, law | Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938) |
| 4 | Karel Čapek (1890–1938) |  Czechoslovakia | drama, novel, short story, essays, literary criticism | several professors[b] |
| 5 | Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) |  Spain | novel, poetry, philosophy, essays, drama |
|
| 6 | Asis Domet (1890–1943) |  Mandatory Palestine | essays, translation | G. E. Khoury (?) |
| 7 | Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) |  France | novel, drama, memoir | Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) |
| 8 | Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) |  France | novel, short story, poetry, drama, literary criticism | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 9 | Olav Duun (1876–1939) |  Norway | novel, short story |
|
| 10 | Alfred Edward Evershed (1870–1941) |  Australia | essays, pedagogy | Elias Edward Miller (1878–1937) |
| 11 | Hans Fallada (1893–1947) |  Germany | novel, short story | Martin Lamm (1880–1950) |
| 12 | Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) |  Austria | essays |  Romain Rolland (1866–944) |
| 13 | Jarl Hemmer (1893–1944) |  Finland | poetry, novel |
|
| 14 | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) |  Denmark | novel, short story, essays |
|
| 15 | Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) | Germany | philosophy, poetry, essays | Wilhelm Pinder (1878–1947) |
| 16 | Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1878–1962) | Austria | novel, short story, poetry, drama | Hans-Friedrich Rosenfeld (1899–1993) |
| 17 | Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) |  Soviet Union | novel, essays, poetry, drama | Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937) |
| 18 | Arvid Mörne (1876–1946) | Finland | poetry, drama, novel, essays | Gunnar Landtman (1878–1940)[d] |
| 19 | Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) |  United States | drama | Henrik Schück (1855–1947) |
| 20 | Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) |  Greece | poetry, essays |
|
| 21 | Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) | India | philosophy, essays, law | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 22 | Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964) | Finland | novel, short story, poetry |
|
| 23 | Hermann Stehr (1864–1940) | Germany | novel, short story, poetry, drama | Hermann August Korff (1882–1963) |
| 24 | Cécile Tormay (1875–1937) |  Hungary | novel, short story, essays, translation |
|
| 25 | Paul Valéry (1871–1945) | France | poetry, philosophy, essays, drama |
|
| 26 | Edvarts Virza (1883–1940) |  Latvia | poetry, essays, translation | |
| 27 | Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti (1871–1955) | Austria | novel, poetry, essays |
The choice of Eugene O'Neill was generally well received. "No one in the postwar years has done more to stir interest in drama throughout the world than Mr. O'Neill!",The Guardian said. The CeylonDaily News said that O'Neill was "our most modern dramatist in that he alone has succeeded in breasting back across that ocean of 2,000 years and more which roll between our time and the ancient Greek." The earlier Irish Nobel prize laureatesGeorge Bernard Shaw andWilliam Butler Yeats both said that they were pleased that O'Neill was awarded the prize. "I have the greatest admiration for his work", Yeats said. A negative reaction appeared in the communist newspaperThe Daily Worker, lamenting that O'Neill had become "increasingly safe and conservative...O'Neill, who started out as a dramatist of the working class, has completed his middle period as the dramatist of a sick middle class."[6]
Because of the state of his health, Eugene O'Neill was unable to travel to Stockholm to receive the prize. But he delivered a speech that was read by the Americanchargé d'affaires at the banquet inStockholm City Hall. In the speech, O'Neill paid tribute to the Swedish dramatistAugust Strindberg and the great influence Strindberg had on his work.[7]
