Prudhomme won first Nobel Prize for Lit

Sully Prudhomme

It is the birthday of French poet Sully Prudhomme (1839), who won the first Nobel Prize for Literature in1901. He used most of the Nobel money to create a poetry prize awarded by the Society of Men of Letters of France. His early work was sentimental and romantic but later he developed a style focused on science and philosophical ideas. His later style was also marked by a strict adherence to formal poetic conventions . Late in life, suffering from poor health, Prudhomme lived as a virtual recluse in a chateau in an artists' commune in the Paris suburbs.