Le Prisme

René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme was a French poet and essayist, and was awarded the first ever Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901.

Prudhomme was born in Paris in 1839. After graduating from the Lycée Bonaparte, Sully-Prudhomme took his bachelor's degree in the sciences in 1857, but a severe eye disorder caused him to abandon his plans to study engineering. In 1858 he passed his examination as bachelor of letters.

He read philosophy and wrote poetry, and joined the Conférence La Bruyère, a distinguished student society. The favorable reception that his fellow members gave his early work encouraged him to continue writing poetry. His first collection, Stances et Poèmes ("Stanzas and Poems", 1865), was praised by Sainte-Beuve. It included his most well-known poem, Le vase bris, 'The Broken Vase'.

After he was elected to the French Academy in 1881, Prudhomme wrote comparatively little poetry, focusing on theoretical and metaphysical works. His last great poem was the 4 000 line epic Le Bonheur (1888), an ambitious attempt to create a scientific-philosophic poem. Following this work, he devoted the rest of his career to the philosophy of poetry. Testament Poétique (1901) voiced his objections to both free verse and the work of the symbolists. In his final work, Psychologie du Libre Arbitre, Psychology of Free Will (1906), He contemplated the concept of free will, and concluded that the course of the universe is not determined.

Sully-Prudhomme died at his villa in Châtenay-Malabry, near Paris, on September 7, 1907.

He donated the money from his Nobel award to the French writers' association, to help aspiring poets with the publication of their first book.