The 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented."The Nobel Prize in Literature 1927 nobelprize.org He was the second philosopher to gain the Nobel Prize after Rudolf Christoph Eucken won in 1908.

Laureate

Bergson was educated at the Lycée Condorcet and at the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied philosophy. He developed his philosophy through a series of publications that were well known for their original perspectives on life as well as their effective application of metaphor, imagery, and analogy. In Essai sur les Données Immédiates de la Conscience ("Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness", 1889), Bergson proposed the idea that consciousness exists on two levels, the first of which can only be attained by intense introspection, and the second of which is an exterior projection of the first. The notion of time that Bergson had previously proposed in his prior writings was expanded upon and used to investigate living things in L'Évolution Créatrice ("Creative Evolution", 1907). His other principal works include Matière et Mémoire ("Matter and Memory", 1896), Le Rire. Essai sur la Signification du Comique ("Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic", 1900) and Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion ("The Two Sources of Morality and Religion", 1932).Henri Bergson – Facts nobelprize.org

Deliberations Nominations Bergson was not nominated in 1927 but in 1928Nomination archive – Literature 1927 nobelprize.org was awarded for this year. He received a total of ten nominations beginning in 1912 made Scottish author Andrew Lang. In 1928, he received three separate recommendations from members of the French Academy, members of the Academy of Political and Moral Sciences and professors of history of philosophy.Nomination archive – Henri Bergson nobelprize.org

In total, the Nobel Committee received 29 nominations in 1927 for authors such as Kostis Palamas, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Hardy, Guglielmo Ferrero, Rudolf Maria Holzapfel, Olav Duun, Ada Negri and Johannes V. Jensen (awarded in 1944). There were six authors newly nominated namely Cesare Pascarella, Eduard Meyer, Samuel Parsons Scott, Edith Wharton, Édouard Estaunié and Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer. Of the 21 nominees, four were women: Ada Negri, Edith Wharton, Concha Espina de la Serna and Grazia Deledda (awarded for 1926).

The authors Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Bernhard Alexander, Mikhail Artsybashev, Hugo Ball, Kazimir Barantsevich, Margret Holmes Bates, Martin Stanislaus Brennan, Clara Louise Burnham, John Bagnell Bury, Mabel Collins, Roi Cooper Megrue, James Oliver Curwood, Minnie S. Davis, Robert de Flers, Federico De Roberto, Manuel Díaz Rodríguez, Osório Duque-Estrada, Georges Eekhoud, Adolfo León Gómez, Ricardo Güiraldes, Lesbia Harford, Hubert Harrison, Fukuda Hideko, Jerome K. Jerome, Kang Youwei, Gaston Leroux, Agnes Maule Machar, Harriet Earhart Monroe, Süleyman Nazif, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Stanisław Przybyszewski, Fyodor Sologub, Borisav Stanković, Stephan G. Stephansson, Mary Webb, Philip Wicksteed died in 1927 without having been nominated for the prize.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize No. Nominee Country Genre(s) Nominator(s)1Olaf Bull (1883–1933) poetry Jens Thiis (1870–1942)2Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) novel, short story, essaysHenrik Schück (1855–1947)3Olav Duun (1876–1939) novel, short story Halvdan Koht (1873–1965)4Concha Espina de la Serna (1869–1955) novel, short storySalomon Leopold Rosenberg (1869–1934)5Paul Ernst (1866–1933) novel, short story, drama, essaysGerman professors6Édouard Estaunié (1862–1942) novel, literary criticism Erik Staaff (1867–1936)7Guglielmo Ferrero (1871–1942)history, essays, novel8Vilhelm Grønbech (1873–1948) history, essays, poetryJohannes Pedersen (1883–1977)9Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) novel, short story, poetry, drama10Ferenc Herczeg (1863–1954)novel, drama, essaysHungarian Academy of Sciences11Rudolf Maria Holzapfel (1874–1930) philosophy, essays12Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1878–1962) novel, short story, poetry, dramaAustrian professors13Josip Kosor (1879–1961) () novel, poetry, dramaBranislav Petronijević (1875–1954)14Eduard Meyer (1855–1930)historyGeorg Wittrock (1876–1957)15Ada Negri (1870–1945)poetry, novel, essays16Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) poetry, essaysSimos Menardos (1872–1933)17Cesare Pascarella (1858–1940)poetry, essays18Samuel Parsons Scott (1846–1929)essays, history, lawEdgar Ewing Brandon (1865–1957)19Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929) novel, poetry, drama, essaysWalther Brecht (1876–1950)20Edvard Westermarck (1862–1939)philosophy, essays8 members of the Finnish Scientific Society21Edith Wharton (1862–1937) novel, short story, poetry, essays7 professors at the Yale University

Prize decision

In November 1927, the Swedish Academy announced that the postponed prize for 1926 was awarded to the Italian writer Grazia Deledda, but that no Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1927 would be awarded with the following explanation:

During the deliberations for the 1927 prize, the Nobel committee considered the Greek poet Kostis Palamas, but his candidacy was hindered as the committee members were not able to read his poetry in the original language. Hugo von Hofmannsthal were also considered, but the committee found his works too uneven to find support for a recommendation. The committee found recent works by Danish author Johannes V. Jensen to be "overwhelmingly attractive", but the committee had "not found their merits to outweigh the offensive and hurtful features of his earlier production, otherwise remarkable for its imaginative power and immediacy. Should the continued development correspond to the promises that have been made recently, the Committers would be happy to change their position hitherto taken." Johannes V. Jensen was subsequently awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature.

On 13 November 1928, the Swedish Academy decided that the Nobel Prize for 1927 should be awarded to Henri Bergson "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented", and Sigrid Undset the prize for 1928.The Nobel Prize in Literature: Nominations and Reports 1901–1950 nobelprize.org Bergson's candidacy had previously, and also in 1928, been dismissed as the committee found it difficult to properly evaluate his work in a field of literature where few other writers were nominated, and their reluctance to recommend non-fiction writers.

Notes

References

External links Presentation Speech by Per Hallström