Rene Sully-Prudhomme (1839-1907)

His early works were lyrical and expressed melancholic view of the world – in later volumes he favored the calm, impersonal techniques of the Parnassians, who reacted against the excessive emotion and subjectivity of Romaticism. Today Sully-Prudhomme is also relatively little read either in France or abroad.

C. D. af Wirsén, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, stated in his Nobel presentation, that "Sully Prudhomme's work reveals an inquiring and observing mind which finds no rest in what passes and which, as it seems impossible to him to know more, finds evidence of man's supernatural destiny in the moral realm, in the voice of conscience, and in the lofty and undeniable prescriptions of duty."

René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme was born in Paris. His parents had been engaged for ten years, and after gaining financial security they married. At the age of two Sully-Prudhomme lost his father, and he grew up in his uncle's house, where mother moved. His father was called 'Sully' and the poet joined it with his surname Prudhomme. At school he was interested in classic literature and mathematics, but severe eye disorder caused him to abandon his plans to study engineering. He also thought seriously of entering the Dominican order. After graduating from the Lycée Bonaparte he became a factory correspondence at the industrial firm of Schneider-Creuzot. Sully-Prudhomme studied law and by 1860 he worked in a notary's office. While recovering from an unhappy love affair – he remained a lifelong bachelor - he studied in the evenings philosophy and wrote poetry. The poet Leconte de Lisle encouraged his first efforts, although he noted that his protégée was not faithful to the ideals of classical poetry, but preferred to depict his own inner feelings.

At the age of 26, Sully-Prudhomme published his first book, STANCES ET POÉMES. The collection of sorrowful poems was well received. It contained his best-known poem, 'The Broken Vase'.

"Le vase où meurt cette vervaine / D'un coup d'éventail fut fêlé; / Le coup dut l'effleurer à peine, / Aucun bruit ne l'a révélé. " In 1866 Sully-Prudhomme became one of the contributors to the anthology LE PARNASSE CONTEMPORAIN, and produced then LES ÉCURIAS D'AUGIAS (1866), CROQUIS ITALENS (1866-68), and LES SOLITUDES (1869).

Sully-Prudhomme wanted to restore the classical standards of elegance in verse. In his striving for direct and simple expression, the work of Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (99-55 B.C.) influenced him deeply. Sully-Prudhomme published a translation of the first volume of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura), together with the accompanying preface. Lucretius had advocated in the didactic poem Epicurean doctrines and stated that "one should guide his life by true principles, man's greatest wealth is to live on little with contended mind; for a little is never lacking." Later Sully-Prudhomme expressing his philosophical thoughts, occasionally difficult to understand, through poetry, under the form of dialogue, as in LA JUSTICE (1878).

When the Franco-Prussian War began, Sully-Prudhomme enlisted in the militia and wrote IMPRESSIONS DE LA GUERRE (1870). In the same year his mother, uncle, and aunt died, and the poet had a stroke, which nearly paralyzed his lower body, a condition with which he would struggle for the rest of his life. During that decade appeared LES VAINES TENDRESSESS (1875) and 'Le Zénith', which was published in the Revue des deux mondes, and dealt with the fatal ascent of three balloonists. In spite of melancholic undertones of his poems and Epicurean wiew of the world, in later life he was considered the poet of life, "of joy, of beauty, of energy, and of novelty."

"No self-appointed messiah like Victor Hugo but no nihilist like Leconte de Lisle, he lifted poetry from some of the gloom into which positivistic pessimism had plunged it for a generation and taught his belief that the road to happiness lies through pain, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love." (Jean-Albert Béde in Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, 1980)

Sully-Prudhomme's major works include the 4 000 line epic LE BONHEUR (1888), a Faustian search for love and knowledge, and an ambitious attempt to create the so-called scientific-philosophic poem. For the rest of his career he devoted to the philosophy of poetry. In LE TESTAMENTE POÉTIQUE (1900) the poet registered his objections both to free verse and the work of the symbolists. LA VRAIERELIGION SELON PASCAL (1905) was about Blaise Pascal's Christian views. In his final work, LA PSYCHOLOGIE DE LIBRE ARBITRE (1906) and in the posthumously published JOURNAL INTIME (1922) Sully-Prudhomme contemplated the concept of free will, and concluded that the course of the universe is not detewrmined .

In 1881 Sully-Prudhomme was elected to the French Academy. Focusing on theoretical and metaphysical works, he wrote comparetively little poetry. During the last years of his life he was seriously disabled by paralysis. Sully-Prudhomme died at his villa in Châtenay-Malabry, near Paris, on September 7, 1907. The money from his Nobel award he donated to the French writers' association to help aspiring poets with the publication of their first book.