1913 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."[1] He is the first and remains only the Indian recipient of the prize.[2][3][4] The award stemmed from the idealistic and accessible (for Western readers) nature of a small body of translated material, including the translated Gitanjali.[5]

1913 Nobel Prize in Literature
Rabindranath Tagore
"because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."
Date
  • 9 October 1913 (announcement)
  • 10 December 1913
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website
← 1912 · Nobel Prize in Literature · 1914 →

Laureate

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Title page of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali (Macmillan, 1913)

The literary works of Rabindranath Tagore are well established in both Indian and Western academic traditions. In addition to fiction in the form of poetry, songs, stories, and dramas, it also incorporates literary criticism, philosophy, and social issues. After translating his poems into English, Tagore, who initially wrote in Bengali, was able to appeal to a large audience in the West. His poetry was believed to portray the tranquility of the spirit in connection with nature, in contrast to the frenzied existence in the West. His world-renowned works include Gitanjali ("Song Offerings", 1910), Gora ("Fair-Faced", 1910) and Ghare-Baire ("The Home and the World", 1916).[6][2]

Deliberations

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Nominations

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Rabindranath Tagore had not been nominated for the prize before 1913, 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.[7] He was nominated by British poet Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944), which led him to being awarded with the prize.[8]

In total, the Swedish Academy received 32 nominations for 28 writers. Among the repeated nominees include Pierre Loti, Verner von Heidenstam (awarded in 1916), Sven Hedin, Ángel Guimerá, Anatole France (awarded in 1921), John Morley, and Thomas Hardy. Nine of the nominees were newly nominated such as Edmond Picard, Jakob Knudsen, Henrik Pontoppidan (awarded in 1917), Émile Faguet, Edward Dowden, and John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury. The Italian writer Grazia Deledda, who was awarded in 1927 for the 1926 prize, was the only female nominee.[9]

The authors Alfred Austin, Aluísio Azevedo, Eva Brag, Jules Claretie, Ferdinand de Saussure, Ferdinand Dugué, Louis Hémon, Friedrich Huch, Ștefan Octavian Iosif, Pauline Johnson, Ioan Kalinderu, Thomas Krag, Emily Lawless, Camille Lemonnier, Juhan Liiv, Charles Major, Oscar Méténier, Lesya Ukrainka, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Frances Julia Wedgwood died in 1913 without having been nominated for the prize. The Irish critic Edward Dowden and English polymath John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury died months before the announcement.

Official list of nominees and their nominators 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 Henri Bergson (1859–1941)   France philosophy Vitalis Norström (1856–1916)
3 Grazia Deledda (1871–1936)   Italy novel, short story, essays
4 Edward Dowden (1843–1913)   Ireland poetry, essays, literary criticism James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford (1847–1913)
5 Émile Faguet (1847–1916)   France literary criticism, essays Émile Boutroux (1845–1921)
6 Salvatore Farina (1846–1918)   Italy novel, short story members of the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere
7 Anatole France (1844–1924)   France poetry, essays, drama, novel, literary criticism Richard Moritz Meyer (1860–1914)
8 Adolf Frey (1855–1920)    Switzerland biography, history, essays Wilhelm Oechsli (1851–1919)
9 Karl Adolph Gjellerup (1857–1919)   Denmark poetry, drama, novel
10 Ángel Guimerá Jorge (1845–1924)   Spain drama, poetry members of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona
11 Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)   Great Britain novel, short story, poetry 97 members of the Royal Society of Literature
12 Sven Hedin (1865–1952)   Sweden essays, autobiography, history Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930)
13 Harald Høffding (1843–1931)   Denmark philosophy, theology members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
14 Jakob Knudsen (1858–1917)   Denmark novel, short story, pedagogy, theology Per Hallström (1866–1960)
15 Ernest Lavisse (1842–1922)   France history
16 Pierre Loti (1850–1923)   France novel, short story, autobiography, essays
17 John Lubbock (1834–1913)   Great Britain essays Hans Hildebrand (1842–1913)
18 John Morley (1838–1923)   Great Britain biography, literary criticism, essays John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury (1834–1913)
19 Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920)   Spain novel, short story, drama, essays members of the Royal Spanish Academy and several literary societies
20 Edmond Picard (1836–1924)   Belgium drama, law, essays   Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)
21 Henrik Pontoppidan (1857–1943)   Denmark novel, short story Adolf Noreen (1854–1925)
22 Peter Rosegger (1843–1918)   Austria-Hungary poetry, essays Karl Alfred Melin (1849–1919)
23 Salvador Rueda Santos (1857–1933)   Spain poetry, essays professors in Madrid
24 Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)   India poetry, novel, drama, short story, essay, songwriting,
translation
Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944)
25 Carl Spitteler (1845–1924)    Switzerland poetry, essays
26 Ernst von der Recke (1848–1933)   Denmark poetry, drama members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
27 Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940)   Sweden novel, short story, poetry Fredrik Wulff (1845–1930)
28 Francis Channing Welles (1887–1956)   Great Britain essays Carveth Read (1848–1931)

Prize decision

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In 1913 the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy considered 28 authors with Émile Faguet, Anatole France, Thomas Hardy, Juhani Aho and Rabindranath Tagore being shortlisted.[10][page needed] The candidacy of Hardy, nominated by 97 members of the Royal Society of Literature, were dismissed by the committee on the grounds that his writing were considered too "pessimistic" to be in line with the Nobel prize donor Alfred Nobel's will. Similarly, France was considered a "sceptic", although he was eventually awarded the prize. The committee had only received one nomination for Tagore, and despite that Tagore was only known to the members of Swedish Academy in a few English translations he was awarded the prize. Committee member Per Hallström declared in a report that "...no poet in Europe since the death of Goethe in 1832 can rival Tagore....". To the poet Verner von Heidenstam, himself awarded in 1916, Tagore was the "discovering [of] a great name".[11][12]

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Theft of Nobel Prize

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Tagore's Nobel Prize and a number of his other possessions were stolen from the Visva-Bharati University's security vault on March 25, 2004.[13] The Swedish Academy decided to give the University two copies of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other of bronze, on December 7, 2004.[14] It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. A baul singer named Pradip Bauri was detained in 2016 after being suspected of providing the robbers with cover. The reward was then given back.[15][16]

References

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  1. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 nobelprize.org
  2. ^ a b Rabindranath Tagore britannica.com
  3. ^ Rabindranath Tagore – Poetry Foundation poetryfoundation.org
  4. ^ Rabindranath Tagore culturalindia.net
  5. ^ Hjärne, Harald (1913), The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913: Rabindranath Tagore—Award Ceremony Speech, Nobel Foundation (published 10 December 1913), retrieved 17 September 2011
  6. ^ Rabindranath Tagore – Facts nobelprize.org
  7. ^ "Nomineringar och utlåtanden 1901-1950" (in Swedish). Svenska Akademien.
  8. ^ Nomination archive – Rabindranath Tagore nobelprize.org
  9. ^ Nomination archive – 1913 nobelprize.org
  10. ^ Gustav Källstrand Andens Olympiska Spel: Nobelprisets historia, Fri Tanke 2021
  11. ^ Sumit Mitra (31 October 1983). "Fresh doubts arises about circumstances under which Tagore was given Nobel Prize". India Today.
  12. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature: Nominations and Reports 1901–1950 nobelprize.org
  13. ^ "Tagore's Nobel Prize stolen". The Times of India. The Times Group. 25 March 2004. Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  14. ^ "Sweden to present India replicas of Tagore's Nobel". The Times of India. The Times Group. 7 December 2004. Archived from the original on 10 July 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  15. ^ "Tagore's Nobel medal theft: Baul singer arrested". The Times of India. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  16. ^ "Tagore's Nobel Medal Theft: Folk Singer Arrested From Bengal". News18. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
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