Sully Prudhomme

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1901

French Poet, lawyer. French Parnassian school group. Wrote elegantly in classic style. Interest in science & philosophy. Eye disease ended studying engineering.

Medal, Cash and Charity

“I think of my young colleagues who do not have the means to have their first poems printed. I am going to reserve a sum [the one I received for the Nobel Prize] that will allow them to have their first notebooks of poems printed. I have already received a large number of requests whose fulfillment would absorb the entire prize.”