Aspects of the Nobel Prize for Literature
by Professor Sture Allén
The Swedish Academy , Sweden
One
of the many subjects treated vituperatively by August Strindberg in his
"Addresses to the Swedish Nation", 1910, was the choice in 1901 of
the first Nobel Laureate in literature, Sully Prudhomme: "Moreover, the
prizewinner should have written ideally (later tampered with to make it idealistically, which is
something else), but he was a materialist and had translated Lucretius."
Strindberg goes on to state that the prize was awarded to Prudhomme
"contrary to statutes and will".
What
Strindberg is referring to is the fact that Alfred Nobel had stipulated in his will in 1895
that the Nobel prize for literature should be awarded to the person who had
produced "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction". As a
contemporary of Nobel, Strindberg is most likely right when he points out that
the adjective idealistic is something else than the adjective idealand incompatible with the
will. But he does not say what the difference is. The question of the meaning
of the adjective ideal as used by Nobel - considered strange
or even anomalous - has been discussed for almost a hundred years and many
interpretations have been proposed. As Kjell Espmark puts it in his book The Nobel Prize in Literature. A
Study of the Criteria behind the Choices, 1991:
"Indeed, the history of the literature prize is in some ways a series of
attempts to interpret an imprecisely worded will."
Nobel
provided us with five criteria. Three of them are of a general type, valid for
all the five prizes, and two are specifically designed for the literary prize.
(1) "to those who ... shall have conferred the greatest benefit on
mankind". This is the basic criterion, introduced in the very first
sentence of the relevant paragraph in the will. (2) "during the preceding
year". For obvious reasons, this is interpreted in such a way that the
writer shall be alive at the moment of nomination - no room for Shakespeare -
and the oeuvre shall be of current interest. (3) "no consideration
whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates". This was a
far-sighted criterion although not in keeping with the national romanticism of
the late 19th century. In the last decade or so it has been possible for it to
apply extensively. (4) "to the person who shall have produced ... the most
outstanding work". It goes without saying that this means literary
excellence. (5) "in an ideal direction". In accordance with a
philological analysis, including an investigation of an amendmentin the
handwritten will, this means 'in a direction towards an ideal', where the
domain of the ideal is indicated by the first criterion above.
With
the conservative permanent secretary Carl David af Wirsén setting the trend,
the discussion in the Academy during the first Nobel years led to an
idealistic reading of the will in spite of balancing contributions from Esaias
Tegnér and others. This was accomplished in the spirit of the Swedish
philosopher Christopher Jacob Boström, the German aesthete Friedrich Theodor
Vischer, advocating ideal realism, and with them, then, Wirsén. No doubt, this
is what Strindberg had noticed and turned against.
The
attitude of the Academy is, of course, reflected in the history of prize
citations. Almost every third prize citation in the first three decades makes
use of words like idealistical(ly) in one way or another.
However,
other aspects gradually came to the fore. Using available sources, like reports
and correspondence, Kjell Espmark has investigated, in the book I mentioned,
the criteria behind the choices. His informative study has disclosed a sequence
of notions underlying the decisions in different periods, such as literary
neutralism (in the days of the First World War, incidentally favouring
Scandinavian writers), the great style (in the wake of Goethe), universal
interest (as opposed to national or restricted in some other way), pioneers
(recognizing innovative and exclusive writing), and a pragmative attitude
(drawing attention to a significant but unknown writer, since none is best
where there is no common measure). Thus, these are different types of internal
arguments used in prize discussions over the years.
The
external citations, on the other hand, form an official source of information,
making up the Academy's explicit statements of motives. A study of these
reveals, quite naturally, some reflections of the underlying arguments just
exemplified. However, these reflections are not abundant and the picture is
somewhat complex. Still, a number of recurrent arguments can be observed.
By
far the most common element in the prize citations is a reference to the
writer's native country or, sometimes, continent. This applies to more than one
out of three citations, fromGrazia Deledda's plastic picture of life
on her native island Sardinia, Anatole France's Gallic temperament and Yasunari Kawabata's great sensibility
expressing the essence of the Japanese mind, to Toni Morrison's visionary force giving
life to an essential aspect of American reality and Pablo Neruda's elemental force that brings
alive a continent's destiny and dreams.
Especially
in the early days, and in any case no later than Sholokhov's "epic of the Don" in
the citation of 1965, the Academy often pointed out a single work as the main
reason for the prize. The other eight books mentioned in this way are Mommsen's A History of Rome, Spitteler'sOlympian Spring, Hamsun's Growth
of the Soil, Reymont's The Peasants, Thomas Mann'sBuddenbrooks, Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, Martin du Gard's Les Thibault, andHemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.
Only
once is a laureate referred to, in the prize citations, as a pioneer: T. S. Eliot. But Pirandellois praised for his bold and
ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art, and Faulkner for
his artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel. In addition, Hemingway andSartre are
credited with the influence they have exerted.
Conversely, Benavente was awarded for the happy manner in
which he had continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama. In the
same vein, Bunin, Pasternak, andSolzhenitsyn were cited for having pursued the classical/great/indispensable
traditions of Russian literature.
The
notion most often brought out in the last fifty years - a dozen times since Gide 1947
- is the depiction of human conditions. This is found in the lines to, e.g., Beckett, whose writing acquires its
elevation in the destitution of modern man; to Singer, who brings universal human
conditions to life; to Golding, whose novels illuminate the human
condition in the world today, as well as to Oe, whose citation mentions his
disconcerting picture of the human predicament.
Today,
I think it is fair to say, there is a drift back
to the will in the light of
the efforts of the past. As an example, consider the prize citation for Nadine Gordimer: "who through her
magnificent epic writing has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very
great benefit to humanity".
Due
to the efficient administration of Nobel's fortune by the Nobel Foundation, our
Academy has sufficient resources to engage a network of experts for reports
from any cultural sphere. Those who are entitled to nominate candidates and
take advantage of this prerogative form another international network. But the
basis of the evaluation process is the reading done by the members of the
Academy. Priorities are of course subjective, but they emerge from the group's
vast experience and are tested in thorough discussions at the sessions. The
members are well aware of the fact that the reputation of the Nobel Prize rests
on the list of laureates.
In
an essay in Scientific
American, October 1994, Marvin Minsky makes the following comment: "As
a species, we seem to have reached a plateau in our intellectual development.
There is no sign that we are getting smarter. Was Albert Einstein a better scientist than Isaac Newton
or Archimedes? Has any playwright in recent years topped William Shakespeare or
Euripides?" His answer is no and it does not satisfy him. We ought to find
ways to transcend our intellectual limits. This can be done, he thinks, by
engineering replacement bodies and brains using nanotechnology. An option will
be immortality.
At
the first stage, researchers will invent electronic devices and connect them to
our brains through large numbers of microscopic electrodes, thereby increasing
brain capacity. In the end, however, they will find ways to replace each part
of the brain. In doing so, we will be making ourselves into machines, Minsky
observes. These new intelligent machines he prefers to call our
"mind-children", following Hans Moravec in Mind Children: The Future of Robot
and Human Intelligence,1988. Since chips are millions of times faster than
brain cells, "mind-children" could be designed to think very much
faster than we do. Minsky calculates that to such an entity half a minute might
seem as long as one of our years and each hour as long as an entire human
lifetime.
Topping
Shakespeare? Well, although it is not a prerequisite you would be most welcome.
As for robots, I do not expect any real competition. By the way, would a
machine appreciate a prize? Let us rejoice in the wisdom of Wislawa Szymborska, the Nobel Laureate of
1996, in her "Notes from a nonexistent Himalayan expedition":
We've inherited hope -
the gift of forgetting.
You'll see how we give
birth among the ruins.
Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
and violin. At nightfall,
we turn lights on, Yeti.
Interpretations
The
Danish literary critic Georg Brandes states in a letter that he had asked one
of Nobel's friends what Nobel might have meant. The answer given was that Nobel
was an anarchist and that by idealistic he meant 'adopting a polemical or
critical attitude to religion, royalty, marriage, social order in general'. Of
this it may first be said that a comment on idealistic is all very well, but the word at
issue here is ideal. Nonetheless, it seems to suggest that
Nobel took an independent stand.
Anders
Österling, a former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy
The
Swedish scholar Gunnar Brandell has pointed out that the contents of Nobel's
library do not suggest that he was particularly influenced by Shelley. Brandell
doubts whether it will ever be possible to ascertain what Nobel meant. For his
part he still ventures the guess that, by linking the prize for literature to
the other international prizes, Nobel specifically wished to make a
contribution to international understanding through literature.
Artur
Lundkvist, a former member of the Academy, once gave the following answer to an
interviewer's question: "The prize should have an idealistic tendency; it
should represent humanism. It cannot be awarded to those who advocate
violence." It may be noted that Lundkvist does not confine himself to
purely literary production; he is referring to writers' views taken as a whole.
Lars
Gyllensten, a former permanent secretary of the Academy, writes that one must
refrain from attempting a detailed analysis of the phrase in question. In his
view, it suffices to say that serious, high quality literature generally
furthers our knowledge of mankind and the human condition and strives to enrich
our lives and improve the conditions under which we live.
The
most recent comments on this issue are to be found in the third volume of
Torgny Segerstedt's great work The
Swedish Academy from a Contemporary Perspective, 1992. Segerstedt, a member of the
Academy, points out that the prizes for science and peace indicate that Nobel
wished to encourage progress towards reconciliation and cooperation between
peoples. Hence, he intended the prize for literature to inspire authors to
bring alive and render attractive the ideals which we could attain thanks to
scientific progress if only we wanted to. Alfred Nobel could be regarded as a
radical ethical idealist.
Analysis
Since
Strindberg marks so clearly a semantic difference between the two adjectives ideal andidealistic, the idea presents itself to try to
ascertain how he himself used them. A national edition of Strindberg's works is
well under way and the texts are available in the computerized Language Bank at
Göteborg University
"They
were excellent youths, ideally inclined, as it was called, with good
intentions and a passion for unknown obscure ideals. - - - Among them was a
sensitive youth who retained his passion for all the old ideals but most of all
Heine ..." (The Son of a Servant, 1886.)
In this specimen, it can be observed that the adjective ideal refers to ideals, one of them pointed
out as Heine, the poet.
"As
far as I am able to understand, Nora [in Ibsen's A Doll's House] offers herself
in return for cash payment. After all, it is ideal and pleasurable. And all naturally for
the love of her husband. To save him!" (Getting Married, 1884.) - "Society had now reached
the pinnacle or the ideal of absurdity. Good was despised and bad honoured. - -
- But it was life in the towns that developed most ideally. - - - The ideal way of building also contributed a
great deal to this ... only a few of the inhabitants had light rooms." (Swedish
Destinies and Adventures, 1883.)
These two passages are examples of Strindberg's use, in an ironical context, of
the same sense as in the previous specimen.
"On
the first of September this year I submit five new original works. A tragedy
two comedies two proverbs. Could also be submitted earlier. A cast of only
eight: an old woman a wife two girls (blonde and brunette) an old man you a
lover (ideal) a ditto (real, ugly)". (Letter to August Lindberg,
1887.) Here the ideal evoked is the opposite of real (Swedish realisk) in juxtaposition with ugly.
"Christopher
Jacob Boström was an office philosopher, a 'speculative philosopher from
Piteå', who had imprisoned himself in a philosophical system dating back to
Plato's idealistic view of life." (Addresses to
the Swedish Nation, 1910.)
This is an example of the use of idealistic in the ordinary philosophical sense.
"This idealistic perception of the kingdom by divine
right, which had been construed as if the monarch were above all human laws and
only answered to God's supreme court, was sown among my contemporaries and
fostered a slavish, servile breed of secondary planets, who derived a modicum
of power from above and thereby forgot that they were servants." (Addresses
to the Swedish Nation, 1910.)
In this case idealistic refers to a conservative outlook on
life and society, although with a philosophical background. The examples given
make it obvious that both adjectives belonged to Strindberg's active vocabulary
and that they conveyed distinctly different meanings.
There
are equivalent examples in other writers, among them Carl Adolph Agardh, who in
1857 wrote the following passage: "If one does not regard the Christian
code of morality as ideal,
that is to say, as representing a far-off end, which we should endeavour to approach,
then it is not possible to understand what is meant by such a code." (Collected
Works, 1.) Here the adjective is given an explicitly stated meaning,
approximately 'referring to an end'.
An
interesting parallel can be found in another book by Strindberg: "But the
reformation came, ruthless, practical, material [Swedish materialisk], successful; the
idolators (as they were called) were overthrown and the temple stripped of
precious metals in particular, since wooden engravings and carvings did remain in
many a place unto these times and remain there to this day." (The New
Nation, 1882.) The adjective material is used here in the sense 'referring
to material', forming an analogue to ideal (and real mentioned above).
It
is evident that, in Nobel's time, the adjective ideal 'referring to an ideal' was used by
several people as a natural element in their phrasing. Also notice Strindberg's
remark about the young men in one of the examples above that they were ideally
inclined "as it was called". This metalinguistic statement refers to
the usage of the time in an interesting way. Thus, it is not as surprising as
has been thought to find the pertinent word in the will.
Amendment
It
so happens that the word under discussion is the result of an amendment made by
Nobel in his handwritten will. The last two letters of the Swedish word idealisk - i.e., sk - have been superimposed on other
characters. This aroused my curiosity - perhaps the original letters could also
shed some light on the matter.
I
made several attempts to make out the word as it had originally been written,
using the naked eye, but soon resolved to consult a forensic expert. Jan-Erik
Karlsson was kind enough to assist me. By means of various optical methods he
was first able to ascertain that all the ink in the area examined was of the
same type. Using microscopy, contrast enhancement, and a comparison of
characters, he concluded that the original word was idealirad. He ended his
analysis with the observation that some people may omit letters, syllables or
entire words when they write, perhaps because their thoughts run ahead of their
pen.
However,
this string of characters does not belong to the Swedish language and it may
readily be understood that Nobel wanted to make a change. The word which occurred
to him at the moment of writing was in all likelihood idealiserad (English idealized). Why did he not
change the word accordingly in that case? I am inclined to believe that he was
not satisfied withidealiserad -
perhaps it was his pondering of this that caused his misspelling - but wanted
to use a word emphasizing loftiness without such an obvious reference to
embellishment. Thus, with a few swift strokes of the pen he wrote sk over the final letters rad, changing the string to the
disputed word idealisk.
In
linguistics, a distinction is usually made between classifying adjectives and
characterizing adjectives. Examples of classifying adjectives are orthographic 'referring to orthography' as inorthographic
reform and physical 'referring to physics' as in physical experiment.
Characterizing adjectives, on the other hand, include doughy 'being like dough' andblackguardly 'being like a blackguard'. In my view, idealisk is used by Nobel, as well as by
Strindberg and Agardh, as a classifying adjective, that is to say it means
'referring to an ideal'.
The
solution would thus appear to be that Nobel's phrase in an ideal direction means 'in a direction towards an
ideal'. The sphere of the ideal is in turn indicated by the fundamental criterion
for all the Nobel Prizes, namely that they are to be awarded to those who
"shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". This means,
for instance, that writings, however brilliant, that advocate, say, genocide,
do not comply with the will.
It
has been asked how it may be determined whether one kind of literature is more
ideal than another. There is no need to make comparisons of this kind, however.
Classifying adjectives have an absolute meaning and thus cannot be compared,
except in very special circumstances, which is not the case here. Comparison is
instead relevant in the phrase preceding "in an ideal direction",
i.e., "the most outstanding".
Once
an idea has been formed of how this issue appeared to Nobel, it is up to each
generation to decide how the literature of the day meets his criterion. It is
perhaps not evident that Nobel himself would have seen Samuel Beckett's work the way we do, to
mention but one example. And seen from our perspective, it is possible that the
first Nobel Laureate's name might have been different.
Idealistical(ly)
Swedish original
|
Authorized translation
|
||
1901
|
hög idealitet
|
lofty idealism
|
|
1908
|
ideal världsåskådning
|
idealistic philosophy of life
|
|
1909
|
ädel idealitet
|
lofty idealism
|
|
1910
|
ideal uppfattning
|
idealism
|
|
1911
|
poetisk idealitet
|
poetic fancy
|
|
1916
|
upphöjd idealism
|
lofty idealism
|
|
1926
|
idealitet
|
idealism
|
|
1927
|
hög idealitet
|
idealistically inspired
|
Mind Children
In
my view, a machine or robot can possibly be instructed to simulate, to some
extent, feelings like compassion or gratitude or sorrow but is probably unable
to experience them. Could it ever feel its pulse beat with excitement? As
Douglas Hofstadter points out in his book Fluid
Concepts & Creative Analogies. Computer Models of the Fundamental
Mechanisms of Thought, 1995, making
a computer say thank you is far from making it feel gratitude. To me, the
simulation of, e.g., emotion, intention, identity is not necessarily emotion,
intention, identity proper.
On
this matter I very much agree with Roger Penrose in his book The Emperor's New Mind. Concerning
Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics, 1991, with its allusion to Hans
Christian Andersen. He maintains that, even though much of what is actually
involved in mental activity might be algorithmic, there must be an essentially
non-algorithmic ingredient in the action of consciousness. This is what David
J. Chalmers, in an essay in Scientific
American, December 1995,
calls the hard problem of consciousness, the question of how physical processes
in the brain give rise to subjective experience.
Among
other things, I also appreciate the point Roger Penrose makes about our moral
responsibilities in case there were a device claimed to be a thinking, feeling,
sensitive, understanding, conscious being: "Simply to operate the computer
to satisfy our needs without regard to its own sensibilities would be
reprehensible."
In
addition, it seems to me that another question comes to mind. Are these
anthropomorphic machines expected to be able to love and make love? Considering
the wealth of experiences, nuances, perceptions, interpretations, etc.,
involved in this very human phenomenon, I think the answer is no. Furthermore,
note that replacement brains will affect the recipient's identity, a
fundamental factor in a relation like love. To me, this assumes the resemblance
of a decisive argument.
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