THE NOBEL PRIZES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4349, 30 November 1921, Page 3

THE NOBEL PRIZES.

HANDICAP OF ENGLISH. The erudite Scandinavian men who award the Nobel Prizes have again disappointed Britain (remarks the Southland Times). A little while ago it! was announced that .the Literature prize was to be awarded to Thomas Hardy, and there .was a general feeling of satisfaction at the prospect of a British writer receiving recognition, but those who remembered .tLe events of previous years were not ready to ".throw up their hats” Just then, and the cable messages published recently have justified |heir scepticism. In previous years Hardy’s claims. have been advanced, but the Wessex poet and novelist has been passed over for a writer with less impressive claims, and this year the Scandinavian judges have repeated themselves.. Why has Harry failed to “cateh the eye” of these judges ? The answer is not difficult. French and German are the principal languages of European literature, and writers who employ either of these as a medium. of expression h-ave an undoubted advantage over a contemporary who has to depend largely on the merits .of the translators of’ his works for the impression he makes on the judges who make the awards. In sup-port-of this, one may quote the fact that Britain can claim only two literary men as recipients of the Literature Prize : Kipling and Tagore. The former, when he was crowned by the judges was actually past' the pinnacle of his greatness, but he was a big figure in an Imperial sense, and he owed bis prize a good deal to the fact that he had "good publicity.” In say ing this, one does not suggest that Kipling was not deserving of the honour, but if he had not occupied such 'a prominent place in Imperial propaganda it is extremely unlikely that the judges would have considered his claims seriously. Tagore was a phase, and the. Scandinavians were captured by the brief - stir of his appearance in English letters. His writings did* much for the literature of his 'people, and the award in his case was not undeserved. Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault, known to the-vtorld as Anatole France, is preeminent in the literature of France, and his claims to recognition by the Nobel committee by flar exceeded those of Theodore Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian novelist, who leceived the honour for 1920, or Karl Spieller, a littile-known essayist of Lucerne, who was successful for 1919. Anatole France combines erudition with a beautiful style, but there is nothing in his achievements to excel in greatness or execution Hardy’s remarkable drama, “The s Dynasts.” The Frenchman, however, employed a language which gave him immense advantages over the Englishman', and while one freely admits the claims of the great Frenchman to recognition, there is a feeling of disappointment at the re peated failure off the Scandinavians to realise the greatness of Thomas Hardy.