The 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art". He is the third Italian recipient of the said prize.
| 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature | |
|---|---|
| Luigi Pirandello | |
"for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art." | |
| Date |
|
| Location | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Presented by | Swedish Academy |
| First award | 1901 |
| Website | Official website |
Nobel Prize in Literature | |
Laureate
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian playwright, prose writer and poet. Pirandello wrote more than 100 short stories, 40 plays and seven novels, including The Late Mattia Pascal (1904). Regarded as a major figure in 20th-century theatre, his plays explore psychology, the ego and identity issues and paved the way for absurd theatre in the 1950s. Pirandello's first major play Right You Are (if You Think You Are) (1917) explored his lifelong subject of the relativity of truth. In the experimental metaplay Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) Pirandello contrasted art and life. It was followed by the tragedy Henry IV (1922). Other plays include Each in His Own Way (1924) and Tonight We Improvise (1930).
Nominations
Luigi Pirandello had not been nominated for the prize before 1934, making it one of the rare occasions when an author have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year they were first nominated. He was nominated only by 1909 Nobel laureate in Physics Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), who serves as the President of Arts Class at the Royal Academy of Italy.
Other nominated authors in 1934 included António Correia de Oliveira, Eugene O'Neill (awarded in 1936), Roger Martin du Gard (awarded in 1937), Frans Eemil Sillanpää (awarded in 1939), Johannes V. Jensen (awarded in 1944), Karel Capek, Kostis Palamas, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Francisco García Calderón, Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício, Olav Duun and Upton Sinclair.
The authors Mary Hunter Austin, Hermann Bahr, Safvet-beg Bašagić, Andrei Bely, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică, Edward Bullough, Roger Fry, John Gray, Thomas Anstey Guthrie, Julian Hawthorne, Naitō Konan, Gustave Lanson, Julia Lopes de Almeida, Ferenc Móra, Erich Mühsam, Arthur Wing Pinero, Thorne Smith, Jakob Wassermann, Brand Whitlock and Paul Zarifopol died in 1934 without having been nominated for the prize.
| No. | Nominee | Country | Genre(s) | Nominator(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joseph Bédier (1864–1938) | France | history, literary criticism, essays | Henrik Schück (1855–1947) |
| 2 | Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) | Israel | poetry, short story, essays | Joseph Klausner (1874–1958) |
| 3 | António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960) | Portugal | poetry |
|
| 4 | Karel Čapek (1890–1938) | Czechoslovakia | drama, novel, short story, essays, literary criticism | Several professors from Prague |
| 5 | Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) | Portugal | poetry, essays |
|
| 6 | Olav Duun (1876–1939) | Norway | novel, short story |
|
| 7 | Manuel Gálvez (1882–1962) | Argentina | novel, poetry, drama, essays, history, biography | Leopoldo Díaz (1862–1947) |
| 8 | Francisco García Calderón Rey (1883–1953) | Peru | drama, essays, philosophy |
|
| 9 | Ventura García Calderón (1886–1959) | Peru | novel, short story, drama, poetry, essays | |
| 10 | Franz Karl Ginzkey (1871–1963) | Austria | novel, short story, poetry, essays | Austrian Academy of Sciences |
| 11 | Bertel Gripenberg (1878–1947) | Finland Sweden | poetry, drama, essays | Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) |
| 12 | Ole Hallesby (1879–1961) | Norway | theology, essays | Olai Skulerud (1881–1963) |
| 13 | Jarl Hemmer (1893–1944) | Finland | poetry, novel | Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) |
| 14 | Hans Henrik Holm (1896–1980) | Norway | poetry, essays | Alexander Seippel (1851–1938) |
| 15 | Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) | Denmark | novel, short story, poetry | Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen (1881–1977) |
| 16 | Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1878–1962) | Austria | novel, short story, poetry, drama | members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences |
| 17 | Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) | France | novel, drama, memoir | Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) |
| 18 | Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) | Spain | philology, history | Per Hallström (1866–1960) |
| 19 | Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) | Soviet Union | novel, essays, poetry, drama | Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937) |
| 20 | Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) | United States | drama | Martin Lamm (1880–1950) |
| 21 | Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) | Greece | poetry, essays |
|
| 22 | Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) | Italy | drama, novel, short story, poetry | Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) |
| 23 | Ramón Pérez de Ayala (1880–1962) | Spain | novel, poetry, literary criticism | Professors of Spanish literature |
| 24 | Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) | India | philosophy, essays, law | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 25 | Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) | United States | poetry, drama | Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) |
| 26 | Ernest Roguin (1851–1939) | Switzerland | law, essays | Edmond Rossier (1865–1945) |
| 27 | Jean Schlumberger (1877–1968) | France | poetry, essays | Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) |
| 28 | Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964) | Finland | novel, short story, poetry |
|
| 29 | Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) | United States | novel, short story, drama, autobiography, essays |
|
| 30 | Hermann Stehr (1864–1940) | Nazi Germany | novel, short story, poetry, drama | Hermann August Korff (1882–1963) |
| 31 | Ewald Sundberg (1886–1967) | Norway | essays | Olai Skulerud (1881–1963) |
| 32 | Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński (1859–1944) | Poland | philology, history, translation, essays | 6 professors of the University of Warsaw |
Award ceremony speech
At the award ceremony on 10 December 1934, Per Hallström, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy said:
"The most remarkable feature of Pirandello’s art is his almost magical power to turn psychological analysis into good theatre. Usually the theatre requires human stereotypes; here the spirit is like a shadow, obscurity behind obscurity, and one cannot decide what is more or less central inside. Finally one racks his brains, for there is no centre. Everything is relative, nothing can be grasped completely, and yet the plays can sometimes seize, captivate, and charm even the great international public. This result is wholly paradoxical. As the author himself explained, it depends on the fact that his works «arise out of images taken from life which have passed through a filter of ideas and which hold me completely captive». It is the image which is fundamental, not, as many have believed, the abstract idea disguised afterwards by an image."
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