1909 Nobel Prize in Literature

1909 Nobel Prize in Literature
Selma Lagerlöf
File:Atelje Jaeger - Selma Lagerlöf 1928.jpeg "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings."
Date	7 October 1909 (announcement) 10 December 1909 (ceremony)
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Country
Presented by	Swedish Academy
First awarded	1901
Official website	Official website

The 1909 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings." She became the first woman and first Swede to be awarded the prize.

In his award ceremony speech on 10 December 1909, Claes Annerstedt of the Swedish Academy said:

"Geijer, Tegnér, or Runeberg, to mention only them, could justly have laid claim to the Nobel Prize, and the development which these great men have started has grown to fuller bloom. But among the writers of the younger generation who have contributed so much to our literature, there is one name that enjoys the special splendour of a star of the first magnitude. In the works of Selma Lagerlöf we seem to recognize the purest and best features of our Great Swedish Mother."

Laureate

File:The The Wonderful Adventures of Nils - cover by Mary Hamilton Frye.jpg

Cover of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils published 1906 and illustrated by Mary Hamilton Frye.

Main article: Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Lagerlöf's authorship is deeply rooted in folk tales, legends, and stories from her home district in Värmland County, Sweden. Her début novel, Gösta Berling's Saga (1891), broke away from the then-prevailing realism and naturalism and is characterized by a vivid imagination. Even so, her works provide realistic depictions of people's circumstances, ideas, and social lives during the 19th-century religious revival. Lagerlöf wrote in prose and her stories characterized by a captivating descriptive power and their language by purity and clarity. Among her significant novels include Jerusalem (1901–02), Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ("The Wonderful Adventures of Nil", 1907), Körkarlen ("Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!", 1912), and The Ring of the Löwenskölds (1925–28).

Deliberations

Nominations

Selma Lagerlöf received 28 nominations since 1904. Her highest number of nominations (11 nominations) were for the 1909 prize with which she was awarded eventually. In total, the Nobel committee received 38 nominations for 21 writers including Angelo de Gubernatis, Maurice Maeterlinck (awarded in 1911), Iwan Gilkin, and Jaroslav Vrchlický. Seven of the nominees were nominated for the first time including Ernest Lavisse, Verner von Heidenstam (awarded in 1916), Martin Greif, and Émile Verhaeren.

The authors Gustaf af Geijerstam, Innokenty Annensky, Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Rosa Nouchette Carey, Euclides da Cunha, John Davidson, Amalia Domingo Soler, George Manville Fenn, Clyde Fitch, Jacob Gordin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Cesare Lombroso, Luis Alfredo Martínez, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Catulle Mendès, Alfredo Oriani, Signe Rink, John Millington Synge, Renée Vivien, Rudolf von Gottschall, Detlev von Liliencron, Ernst von Wildenbruch, and Egerton Ryerson Young died in 1909 without having been nominated for the prize.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize

No.	Nominee	Country	Genre(s)	Nominator(s)
1	Paul Bourget (1852–1935)	France	novel, short story, literary criticism, essays	René Bazin (1853–1932)
2	Borden Parker Bowne (1847–1910)	United States	philosophy, theology, essays	Henry MacCracken (1840–1918)
3	Francesco D'Ovidio (1849–1925)	Italy	philology, literary criticism	Ernesto Monaci (1844–1918)
4	Angelo de Gubernatis (1840–1913)	Italy	drama, essays, philology, poetry	Angelo Valdarnini (1847–1930) Gaspare Finali (1829–1914) Paolo Boselli (1838–1932) Francesco Lorenzo Pullé (1850–1934)
5	Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé (1848–1910)	France	essays, literary criticism	Albert Vandal (1853–1910)
6	Anatole France (1844–1924)	France	poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism	Paul Hervieu (1857–1915)
7	Iwan Gilkin (1858–1924)	Belgium	poetry	Ernest Discailles (1837–1914)
8	Martin Greif (1839–1911)	Germany	poetry, drama	20 professors from Breslau, Prague, Leipzig, Liège, Innsbruck, etc.
9	Ángel Guimerá Jorge (1845–1924)	Spain	drama, poetry	18 members of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona
10	Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940)	Sweden	novel, short story	Ewert Wrangel (1863–1940) Otto Sylwan (1864–1954) Gustav Cederschiöld (1849–1928) Ludvig Stavenow (1864–1950) Johan Vising (1855–1942) Frits Läffler (1847–1921) Erik Brate (1857–1924) Eugène Lewenhaupt (1849–1927) Axel Olrik (1864–1917) Karl Johan Warburg (1852–1918) Hans Lange (1884–1960) Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930) Adolf Noreen (1854–1925) Gottfrid Billing (1841–1925) Claes Annerstedt (1839–1927) Harald Hjärne (1848–1922) Vitalis Norström (1856–1916) Waldemar Rudin (1833–1921) Albert Theodor Gellerstedt (1836–1914) Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919) Carl Carlson Bonde (1850–1913)
11	Ernest Lavisse (1842–1922)	France	history	Frédéric Masson (1847–1923)
12	Salvador Rueda Santos (1857–1933)	Spain	poetry, essays	4 professors of the Complutense University of Madrid
13	Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)	Belgium	drama, poetry, essays	Ernest Discailles (1837–1914) Belgian professors and Academy members
14	John Morley (1838–1923)	Great Britain	biography, literary criticism, essays	8 members of the British Society of Authors
15	Georgios Souris (1853–1919)	Greece	poetry, songwriting	Pavlos Karolidis (1849–1930) Dimitrios Patsopoulos (1845–1920) members of the Parnassos Literary Society
16	Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)	Great Britain	poetry, drama, literary criticism, novel	31 members of the British Society of Authors Carl Bildt (1850–1931)
17	Émile Verhaeren (1855–1916)	Belgium	poetry, essays	Ernest Discailles (1837–1914) Belgian professors and Academy members
18	Charles Wagner (1852–1918)	France	theology, philosophy	Bernard Bouvier (1861–1941)
19	Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940)	Sweden	novel, short story, poetry	Carl Carlson Bonde (1850–1913)
20	Jaroslav Vrchlický (1853–1912)	Austria-Hungary (Czechoslovakia)	poetry, drama, translation	Arnošt Kraus (1859–1943)
21	Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol (1847–1920)	Romania	history, philosophy, essays	Ion Găvănescu (1859–1949)

Prize decision

In 1909, Selma Lagerlöf was shortlisted alongside Maurice Maeterlinck and Émile Verhaeren. Committee chair Carl David af Wirsén yet again, knowing that Swinburne died months before the Nobel announcement, launched for Belgian writers Maeterlinck and Verhaeren. He regarded on Maeterlinck as "one of the finest writers in the continent" and praised his "brilliant compositions in works like The Blind and Pelléas and Mélisande, as was the same for Verhaeren's poetic oeuvres. But unfortunately, Wirsén failed to gain any support from other committee members. Hence, Lagerlöf was made the Nobel laureate.

Reactions

The choice of Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf as Nobel laureate in 1909 (for the "lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterizes her writings") followed fierce debate because of her writing style and subject matter, which broke literary decorums of the time.

Award ceremony

During Lagerlöf's acceptance speech, she remained humble and told a fantastic story of her father, as she 'visited him in heaven'. In the story, she asks her father for help with the debt she owes and her father explains the debt is from all the people who supported her throughout her career. Lagerlöf explains that she remembered her father the moment she received the prize, saying:

"But then I thought of my father and felt a deep sorrow that he should no longer be alive, and that I could not go to him and tell him that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I knew that no one would have been happier than he to hear this. Never have I met anyone with his love and respect for the written word and its creators, and I wished that he could have known that the Swedish Academy had bestowed on me this great Prize. Yes, it was a deep sorrow to me that I could not tell him."

In 1914, she also became a member of the Swedish Academy. For both the academy membership and her Nobel literature prize, she was the first woman to be so honored. She became a nominator for Georg Brandes for the 1920 and 1922 Nobel prize.

External links

• Award ceremony speech by Claes Annerstedt nobelprize.org
• Nobel diploma nobelprize.org
• Photo gallery nobelprize.org