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.

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, 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.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize No. Nominee Country Nominator(s) Country 1 Joseph Bédier (1864–1938) Henrik Schück (1855–1947) 2 Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) Joseph Klausner (1874–1958) 3 António Correia de Oliveira (1878–1960) Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) Alberto de Oliveira (1857–1937) Agostinho de Campos (1870–1944) Alfredo da Cunha (1863–1942) Luís da Cunha Gonçalves (1875–1956) 4 Karel Čapek (1890–1938) several professors 5 Maria Madalena de Martel Patrício (1884–1947) António Pereira Forjaz (1893–1972) Bento Carqueja (1860–1935) 6 Olav Duun (1876–1939) Jens Thiis (1870–1942) Halvdan Koht (1873–1965) Helga Eng (1875–1966) 7 Manuel Gálvez (1882–1962) Leopoldo Díaz (1862–1947) 8 Francisco García Calderón Rey (1883–1953) 49 members of the Peruvian Society of Authors Louis Bertrand (1866–1941) 9 Ventura García Calderón (1886–1959) Georges Dumas (1866–1946) 13 professors 10 Franz Karl Ginzkey (1871–1963) Austrian Academy of Sciences 11 Bertel Gripenberg (1878–1947) Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) 12 Ole Hallesby (1879–1961) Olai Skulerud (1881–1963) 13 Jarl Hemmer (1893–1944) Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) 14 Hans Henrik Holm (1896–1980) Alexander Seippel (1851–1938) 15 Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen (1881–1977) 16 Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1878–1962) Austrian Academy of Sciences 17 Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958) Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) 18 Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) Per Hallström (1866–1960) 19 Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941) Sigurd Agrell (1881–1937) 20 Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) Martin Lamm (1880–1950) 21 Kostis Palamas (1859–1943) Frederik Poulsen (1876–1950) Harry Fett (1875–1962) 22 Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) 23 Ramón Pérez de Ayala (1880–1962) professors of Spanish literature Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968) 24 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) 25 Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) Hjalmar Hammarskjöld (1862–1953) 26 Ernest Roguin (1851–1939) Edmond Rossier (1865–1945) 27 Jean Schlumberger (1877–1968) Torsten Fogelqvist (1880–1941) 28 Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888–1964) Torsten Evert Karsten (1870–1942) Yrjö Hirn (1870–1952) Eemil Nestor Setälä (1864–1935) Rafael Erich (1879–1946) Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) 29 Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) Ferdinand Schiller (1864–1937) Robert Morss Lovett (1870–1956) William Ellery Leonard (1876–1944) Robert Herrick (1868–1938) 30 Hermann Stehr (1864–1940) Hermann August Korff (1882–1963) 31 Ewald Sundberg (1886–1967) Olai Skulerud (1881–1963) 32 Tadeusz Zieliński (1859–1944) 6 professors at University of Warsaw

Prize decision In their report to the Swedish Academy dated 27 September 1934, four members of the Nobel committee recommended that the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature should be awarded to Luigi Pirandello, particularly noting his plays as "a notable and independent attempt to renew the world of the stage" with "about half a dozen, from one point of view or another, remarkable, often ingenious works." The fifth committee member Henrik Schück disagreed and stated in a separate report: "I readily admit that Pirandello possesses considerable dramatic talent and a great facility for poetry, and that his plays possess something of the freshness of the literary sketch. But for my part, I cannot give him a higher rank than that of a skilled faiseur, whose plays may well reap a certain success on the stage for the moment, when they are new, but which will be forgotten quite soon, for the content of ideas is very meager, and purely poetically speaking, he is in my opinion not an author of the standards that the Nobel Foundation's statutes apparently intend." Schück instead proposed the American playwright Eugene O'Neill, who was subsequently awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature.

On 8 November 1934 the Swedish Academy decided that that year's Nobel Prize in Literature should be awarded to Luige Pirandello "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art".

Notes

Award ceremony speech At the award ceremony on 10 December 1934, Per Hallström, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy said:

References

External links Award ceremony speech Award ceremony video