1925 Nobel Prize in Literature

20px 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature George Bernard Shaw Swedish Academy 1901 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1925/summary/ George Bernard Shaw 1925.jpg "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty." 12 November 1925notes The Swedish Academy decided on 12th November 1925 that this year's Nobel Prize in Literature would be reserved for the following year.http://libris.kb.se/bib/8345517 Nobelpriset i litteratur. Nomineringar och utlåtanden 1901–1950 Bo Svensén 2001 Svenska Akademien 9789113010076 1 November 2025 (postponement) 11 November 1926 (announcement) 10 December 1926 (ceremony) Stockholm, Sweden 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature 1926 The 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) "for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty."The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925 nobelprize.org The prize was awarded in 1926. Shaw was the second Irish Nobel laureate in literature after W. B. Yeats won in 1923.https://www.nytimes.com/1926/11/21/archives/shaw-will-hold-nobel-prize-money-he-will-keep-it-until-plans-for-it.html Shaw Will 'Hold' Nobel Prize Money 21 November 1925 New York Times subscription Laureate George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw, the son of a government servant, was born in Dublin. At the age of 20, he relocated to London after working as a real estate agent. Five of his novels had been turned down before he rose to prominence as a literary and music critic. He was a member of the Fabian Society, a socialist thinktank that had Virginia Woolf among its members. He simultaneously promoted racial biology and made flattering remarks about Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler.https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1925/shaw/facts/ George Bernard Shaw – Facts nobelprize.org thumb|left|200px|Theater poster for Pygmalion in Slovenia performed on 20 December 1927. As a theater critic and commentator, Shaw wrote essays to support his critiques of modern British theater. He claimed that art should be educational and address societal issues in his first plays, Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Allegories, provocation, and satire are hallmarks of Shaw's plays. The most well-known of his more than 60 plays is Pygmalion (1912). Shaw advanced the theory of "creative evolution," a form of racial biology that denied each person's inherent value. Among his major plays include Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1902), Major Barbara (1905), Saint Joan (1923).https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Bernard-Shaw George Bernard Shaw Biography, Plays, & Facts britannica.com Deliberations Nominations George Bernard Shaw was nominated seven times before he, in 1926, was awarded the 1925 prize.https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=8479 Nomination archive – George Bernard Shaw 21 May 2024 nobelprize.org He was first recommended to the Nobel Committee in 1911 by British scholar Gilbert Murray and in 1912 by Norwegian academic Kristian Birch-Reichenwald Aars. His nominations came back in 1921 to 1926, when he was nominated annually by three different nominators, Henrik Schück, Tor Hedberg and Nathan Söderblom, all of which are members of the Swedish Academy. In total, the Swedish Academy received 25 letters nominating 21 writers from Europe including Thomas Hardy, Georg Brandes, Guglielmo Ferrero (with 5 nominations – the highest), Willem Kloos, Paul Sabatier, Paul Claudel, Kostis Palamas, Roberto Bracco, Johan Bojer, Olav Duun and Paul Ernst. Six of the authors were newly nominated, namely Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded in 1944), Giovanni Schembari, Paul Elmer More, Paul Raynal, Ferenc Herczeg and Rudolf Maria Holzapfel. There were only three female authors nominated, namely Grazia Deledda (awarded in 1926), Matilde Serao and Sigrid Undset (awarded in 1928).https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/list.php?prize=4&year=1925 Nomination archive – Literature 1925 21 May 2024 nobelprize.org The authors Hugo Bettauer, George Washington Cable, Mary Cholmondeley, Gottlob Frege, Mikhail Gershenzon, René Ghil, Pyotr Gnedich, Gerhard Gran, H. Rider Haggard, Emma Curtis Hopkins, José Ingenieros, Gustav Kastropp, Amy Lowell, Felix Liebermann, Pierre Louÿs, Antun Branko Šimić, Rudolf Steiner, Elisabeth von Heyking, Friedrich von Hügel and Sergei Yesenin died in 1925 without having been nominated for the prize. Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize No. Nominee Country Genre(s) Nominator(s) 1 Johan Bojer (1872–1959) Norway novel, drama Christen Collin (1857–1926) 2 Roberto Bracco (1861–1943) Kingdom of Italy Italy drama, screenplay Haakon Shetelig (1877–1955) 3 Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Denmark literary criticism, essays Harry Fett (1875–1962) 4 Otokar Březina (1868–1929) Czechoslovakia poetry, essays 6 professors of the University in Brno 5 Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) Kingdom of Italy Italy novel, short story, essays Henrik Schück (1855–1947) 6 Olav Duun (1876–1939) Norway novel, short story Hjalmar Lindroth (1893–1979) 7 Paul Ernst (1866–1933) Weimar Republic Germany novel, short story, drama, essays Emil Ermatinger (1873–1953) 8 Guglielmo Ferrero (1871–1942) Kingdom of Italy Italy history, essays, novel Gaetano Salvemini (1873–1957) Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941) Niccolò Rodolico (1873–1969) Professors in Geneva Professors in Neuchâtel Nathan Söderblom (1866–1931) 20px Verner von Heidenstam (1859–1940) 9 Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) United Kingdom novel, short story, poetry, drama Robert Eugen Zachrisson (1880–1937) 10 Ferenc Herczeg (1863–1954) Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946) Hungary novel, drama, essays Hungarian Academy of Sciences 11 Rudolf Maria Holzapfel (1874–1930) Austria philosophy, essays 20px Romain Rolland (1866–1944) 12 Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1873–1950) Denmark novel, short story, poetry Frederik Poulsen (1876–1950) 13 Willem Kloos (1859–1938) Netherlands poetry, essays, literary criticism Dutch authors and professorsnotes W. Kloos was nominated by a number of Dutch authors and professors; at least one was confirmed as being eligible to make a nomination. 14 Paul Elmer More (1864–1937) United States 1912 theology, essays, literary criticism Nathan Söderblom (1866–1931) 15 Paul Raynal (1885–1971) Third French Republic France drama, essays Tor Hedberg (1862–1931) 16 Paul Sabatier (1858–1928) French Third Republic France history, theology, biography Carl Bildt (1850–1931) 17 Giovanni Schembari (1894–1959) Kingdom of Italy Italy essays Achille Loria (1857–1943) 18 Matilde Serao (1856–1927) Kingdom of Italy Italy novel, essays 4 professors of the Academy in Naples 19 George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Ireland drama, essays, novel Tor Hedberg (1862–1931) 20 Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) Norway novel, memoir, essays 2 members of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Lettersnotes The two nominators highlights Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter (The Bridal Wreath, 1923; The Mistress of Husaby, 1925; The Cross, 1927) in the nomination. 21 Ludwig von Pastor (1854–1928) Weimar Republic Germany history Olof Kolsrud (1885–1945) Prize decision 1926 Nobel Prize in Literature#Prize decision In their report to the Swedish Academy dated 12 September 1925, the Nobel committee recommended that the prize for 1925 should not be awarded.Nobelpriset i litteratur. Nomineringar och utlåtanden 1920-1950 1925 Svensén, Bo Svenska Akademien 2001 Among the nominees dismissed were four authors who were subsequently awarded the prize, George Bernard Shaw, Grazia Deledda, Sigrid Undset and Johannes V. Jensen. One committee member, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, unsuccessfully proposed that the year's prize should be awarded to the English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy. The Nobel committee also considered the Czech poet Otokar Březina, but his candidacy was hindered as none of the committee members could read his work in the original language but were referred to rather inadequate German and English translations.Det litterära nobelpriset: historien om världslitteraturens största utmärkelse Ett bredare pris Tenngart, Paul Albert Bonniers förlag 2025 Swedish In November 1925, the Swedish Academy declared that no Nobel Prize in Literature would be awarded with the following statement: "During the selection process in 1925, the Nobel Committee for Literature decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied." After the deliberations in 1926, the Swedish Academy decided that George Bernard Shaw should be awarded the prize for 1925. Reactions At first, Shaw declined the prize stating "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel prize". He later changed his mind and accepted the honour, but refused to receive the prize money.https://irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/timeline/george-bernard-shaw-refuses-nobel-prize-money George Bernard Shaw Refuses Nobel Prize Money irelandxo.com Shaw recommended that the prize money instead used to fund the translation of works by Swedish playwright August Strindberg to English. Award ceremony At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1926, Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy, said: [George Bernard Shaw's] somewhat abstract logical radicalism (...) combined with a ready wit, a complete absence of respect for any kind of convention, and the merriest humour – all gathered together in an extravagance which has scarcely ever before appeared in literature. (...) Early he became a prophet of revolutionary doctrines, quite varied in their value, in the spheres of aesthetics and sociology, and he soon won for himself a notable position as a debater, a popular speaker, and a journalist. He set his mark on the English theatre as a champion of Ibsen and as an opponent of superficial tradition, both English and Parisian. (...) [Shaw] came to create what is to some extent a new kind of dramatic art, which must be judged according to its own special principles. Its novelty does not lie so much in structure and form; from his wide-awake and trained knowledge of the theatre, he promptly and quite simply obtains any scenic effect he feels necessary for his ends. But the directness with which he puts his ideas into practice is entirely his own.https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1925/ceremony-speech/ Award ceremony speech nobelprize.org Notes References External links Award ceremony speech Documentary About GB Shaw from George Bernard Shaw Society Category:George Bernard Shaw 1925 Nobel