AWARDING LITERARY PRIZES

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1491, 13 July 1912, Page 9

AWARDING LITERARY PRIZES

' ,The French Academy has ! , awarded' its ' Grand': Literary Pj'iiicof' .ten." thousand ,-francs:this year'to'M: Andre'Lafori'for' his story, "L'Eleve Gilles," which is characterised by the "Figaro" as "simple- ' et_tres prof on<l."'To the world at large i this may; seem a matter-of-fact statement, but. to the' ten members.of. the committee,;'of: the ...Academy, particularly'. en-'. ; trusted with the task of recommending an , author, 'it marks' the end—for some ■ months—of •■'■ a responsibility that has troubled-them-not a little.'. Its difficulty ; may be gauged, from the fact that last year.: the-committee adopted a certain basis of: judgment, only, to discover that it was .so .impracticable. that tho .prize oojild -not be awarded upon it at all. The , • prize is offered for-'the work of imagination and inspiration that has appeared during the last two years; The first ideaerf the Academy regarding the determinar tion of;the-award was that it should bo ■ given:.to .someone, who had- already won recognition from either the public or the critics. Such, a large prize, remarked one member of the Committee of Ten, ought rot to, go to a single book, but rather to '■'.a. superior talent.. . Wo ought not, he went on, to crown a literary debutant, worthy : merely of encouragement; our business is rather to consecrate tho reputation and to recompense .the effort, ■ already great, of some well-known' )vriter. ■■ ' ' , These:were, fine : words,' but-their ouf> come was such division among tho-ten : that. no candidate obtained a majority of , the votes in'the six meetings of the committee.. Accordingly, this time they rejected the principle of choice that at first, seemed so ideal, and realising that the'main'object , of their existence ■ was to get the ten thousand francs into '■omeb&dy'e hands, .proceeded to their delibcrations .upon' a now theory. Not a collec- ' tion of works, they, determined, but a ■ single bock should be put under tho mi- ; croscope, nndby it tho <nithor should rise or fall. If this should .turn out to mean thatisome debutant nnpeared among the \ candidates, well and good. ':■ Indeed, it -.ras just this sort of competitor that the coin- ■' mittee.would favour. Let the youthful writer of whnmone says, off-hand, "He is a futiiro'Acadcmician," not fear, to submit 'fo the suffrages of his colleagues of ■ to-morrow Jiis moit recent work. There were dynics who suggested that this rule of giving the prize to a less known author . would have to-be brokeir'now and then, when the growing galaxy of youthful writcre ■ should not have produced any- - thing remarkable,- but in view l o£ tho fiasco of last year, when the older writers had- their chance, the committee will hardly bo daunted in giving its new test a 'tliofough trial. One who does not live in the intense atmosphere- of the Academy, while appreciating'the delicacy of-the task impos- ■ ed .uivon the Cominitteo of Ten, may, nevertheless, feel 'tliat its members have , \ ra,ther unnecessarily , -increased : their . labonrs.' Why should they go behind tho -terms governing tho award in an ondenv•our,to ascertain its motive? Why imag-. in.e,'an,T motivo beyond that of-recognising a,particularly good piece of work, and encouraging other' good work ? Sbmo- .' th'ing'isto be said for recognition nf 'yo'uthful writers as, 6uch, perhaps, but

surely the greatest spur that can be given them is 'in the sight of rewards bestowed upon merit wherever it shows itself. -There is nothing to prevent tho Academy from offering two prizes if this matter of fame already won.' and famo yet to be achieved is regarded as vital, although this course, too, would immediately raise problems of its own, the line between obscurity and celebrity not being a hard and fast one, or. the same in tho mind of every critic. The moro serious consequence of" the committee's differences of opinion over the interpretation of their duty is that it tends to tiirow into the background the central point in their instructions; namely; that the book crowned should bo distinguished Tor its imagination and, inspiration. And what of the losers in these contests? . Shall they take their failure to heart and bury their books deeper than did ever plummet sound? Not if they : hearken to a writer in the "Temps." Twenty years hence, he comforts them, the greater portion of the gTand laureates will not have kept the promises of their Introduction to the purlieus 'of the immortals. If one swallow does not make a summer,' by how' much'lles t ' ilocs the winning of a prize, even often thousand francs/ guarantee- a genius. It is not the .writer,'that ..is to. say, but his book, his:'one fortunate. work not impossibly, that 'wins the award. Literature will get on, whether there 'are prizes of this sort or not. Sophocles,'iEschylus, and Euripides flourished under, a System of prizes which, so far aswe can tell,-.were well awarded: In their cases,'the judgment of the moment and that of the centuries aro at one. ■ Shakesneare, Goethe, and Browning, on "the other hand, managed tolerably well without such a 'system. , 'And our short-story prize-iyinners.flash up for a second, and then disappear a?ain. It' is witti books very much as, it is with everything else. Newfain discovered his laws/when the' Nobel Prizes were unheard of, and Madame-Curie received one of them for what she had Jearncd about radium. . Yet -nobody supnbses that the discovery of radium -..by-- Madame .Curie depended upon a Nobel 'Prize. TRnsselns,'" we know, had to be-dashed-off tn furnish the money, for the last duties of.Tohnsoii to his mother, while the Canterbury Tales were apparently-penned, for no _ thing but tho enjoyment , nf their author, arid any who should read'them. 'Once in a while wo shall owe an excellent book to the stimulus of a prize, As we owe some tothe prirk of necessity ;.V>nt. in ppnernl, writers, liko artist , !, scientists, and athletes, will do what they do. ol">fl.v fot- the , sake of-tho achievomer''. find Hip applause that 'it brings.—"New YorE ■ Nation , ."