John Galsworthy is an English novelist and playwright. 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature.
1867 On August 4th, John Galsworthy was born in Kingston Hill, Surrey, England. Besides him, his father John and his mother Blanche Bailey bartlett have three other children. John Galsworthy studied at Harrow College, a famous private men's college near London. He won honor in this school because he plays football well and is good at cross-country running. Then he entered the new college of Oxford University to study jurisprudence, and his academic performance 1889 ranked second. 1890 qualified as a lawyer, but not interested in actively engaging in legal work. In the next few years, he traveled around the world, partly to study the law of the sea and partly to accept his father's urging and escape from an inappropriate love dispute. On the trip, he met Joseph Conrad for the first time, and later he became his friend and literary tutor. 1895, John Galsworthy returned to London, and the love between him and Ada, the wife of his cousin Asa John Galsworthy, developed. Ida and Asa are at odds, but they are like-minded with John Galsworthy. Encouraged by Ada, John Galsworthy decided to engage in professional writing.
John Galsworthy's father was a moralist with Victorian characteristics, and he was also the economic pillar of John Galsworthy. I can't tolerate my son fooling around with relatives' wives, and I can't let divorce and remarriage happen. Therefore, before his cousin died in 1904, the relationship between John Galsworthy and Ada was always obscure. 1905, Ada and John Galsworthy became lovers. The day they got married was the day Ada and Asa divorced the year before last. With the stability of love life and the establishment of career, John Galsworthy devoted himself to writing and other reforms. With the independence of wealth, I have the freedom to write and spend time on my chosen job, regardless of commercial significance, and have been living a rich life for the upper and middle class in Britain. In addition to literary creation, he also spends time, articles and money to support various charities. His support includes opposing drama censorship, abolishing solitary confinement in cells, not cruelty to animals and banning airplanes in war. He pays special attention to the work of Pen Club, an international writers' organization. He was a founding member and served as the first chairman. The last thing he did before his death was to donate the Nobel Prize and set up the PEN Trust Fund.
John Galsworthy travels almost every year. He often goes to continental Europe and the United States, and Austria is his favorite place. During the First World War, he was too old to serve, so he donated all his income at that time to the war institutions and served in a hospital in France for nearly six months. After the war, John Galsworthy continued to live a life of writing and traveling.
Although he refused the knighthood conferred on him in 19 17, John Galsworthy still won many honors. He holds honorary degrees from Manchester University (1927), Cambridge University (1930), Oxford University (193 1) and Princeton University (193 1). 1929 also made special contributions.
Almost two years before his death, John Galsworthy's health began to deteriorate, and he didn't go to see a doctor until he was dying for fear of Ida's anxiety. 1932, the condition can not be ignored, and finally the brain tumor was diagnosed. John Galsworthy failed to go to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize. 193365438+1October 3 1, less than two months after winning the prize, he died in Grovloch, hampstead.
Second, John Galsworthy's literary history:
At the insistence of his lawyer father, John Galsworthy studied law, which made him engage in literary and artistic creation relatively late. It was not until he was 30 years old that his first book, A Collection of Short Stories, was published (1897). Although at this time, with the encouragement and help of his fiancee Ida and his friend Joseph Conrad, he still used the pseudonym of John Sheen when he published Tianya Haijiao, and several other books, including the first two novels, jocelyn (1898) and Robin Villa (1900), also used this pseudonym.
When John Galsworthy started writing, he was deeply inspired by the works of ivan turgeneve and guy de maupassant. Edward Garnett's influence on him is more important. Garnett is a little-known literary figure and an excellent editor. He is a friend of John Galsworthy and a critic of his works. He tried to point out the shortcomings of John Galsworthy's works and put forward suggestions for revision. The novel The Island of the Pharisees (1904) is John Galsworthy's first truly original masterpiece, and it is also the first time that he published his work under his real name. Sheldon, the hero of the novel, comes from a well-known family. He wants to realize one of his idealistic wishes by helping a tramp to make him rich. However, contrary to the Pygmalion myth, the wanderer is drifting away and still sticks to his original life. This made Sheldon wake up. He couldn't go on with his life.
When John Galsworthy's novel creation began to succeed, Ida and Edward Garnett began to urge him to try drama creation. Despite John Galsworthy's reluctance, his first play, The Silver Box, was staged by Harry glanville Barker and J.E. Vedrine at the Palace Theatre on 1906. Although the play was criticized as a bit melodramatic, on the whole, the audience welcomed it. This play is only the first of his many successful plays. When his second play Joy (1907) made people generally disappointed, his play Struggle (1909), which described contradictory figures in labor disputes, was fully affirmed. Justice (19 10), a play attacking the British legal system, has played a role in reducing solitary confinement of prisoners. As a diligent writer, in more than 30 years, he has created many other plays besides the above, among which Loyalty (1922) is the most popular and can be proved to be the best one. The theme expressed in Loyalty is that a person surrounded by social customs should mock the customs, rather than be bothered by them-this is John Galsworthy's favorite theme, which is similar to his own attitude towards love life. Fraud (1920) and escape (1926) were also well received, with obvious commercial effects.
Despite John Galsworthy's success in drama, his fame still exists in his novels. The book that made him famous was Man with Industry (1906), which was published in the same year as the first play. The forsyte family is the center of his writing. His purpose is to show the destructive effect of property, and to show that rigid compliance with social customs will have amazing consequences. He effectively showed the image of his class in the mirror and pointed out its disadvantages. In this book, Soames Forsyte's wife Irene falls in love with her husband's niece's fiance. In order to get revenge, Soames ignored Irene's wishes, let her stick to her original marriage and bankrupt her husband financially. After the death of her rival in love, Soames was left with a loveless marriage, and many other things were lost. Other family members introduced in The Man with Industry include the head of the Forsyte family, old Julian, a firm and reliable representative of the middle class, and young Julian, who loved art rather than business and finally bid farewell to his family.
The Man with Property is the first novel in the Forsyte family series. John Galsworthy didn't intend to write a long family novel at first. Its appearance was not so much the author's own will as the result of a publishing company. In the years after the war, for people at that time, the traditional world lost more than it really lost. John Galsworthy began to find more and more advantages of the unresponsive middle class in his works. With the author's own maturity, the characters in his works have also become plump and real, which is different from the situation that Soames is just narrow-minded and possessive in The Man with Industry.
The last two novels of John Galsworthy's first trilogy are Riding a Tiger (1920) and Fu (192 1). The second modern comedy trilogy includes White Ape (1924), Silver Spoon (1926) and Swan Song (1928). The end of the chapter (1934) is his third trilogy, which shifts the focus of writing to charleville's family, while Forsyth's family becomes secondary. This trilogy consists of Waiting Girl (193 1 year), Flowering Desert (1932) and On the River (1933). People's evaluation of the end of a chapter is far less than that of the first two trilogy.
John Galsworthy's reputation is obviously based on the description of forsyth's family history. His works describing Forsyte family characters are not only satirical literature, but also social history. The author is very good at capturing the essence of his generation. With the evolution of the character model on which he is based, the characters in his works become more vivid and emotional. John Galsworthy took a simple and direct approach when studying the motive force of human beings, instead of trying Freudian psychoanalysis, which became popular in the early 20th century. Looking back now, although his research method is simple in principle, there is nothing wrong with it. It is rare for a writer to integrate social history into a novel like John Galsworthy and make it a colorful artistic masterpiece.
The book about Forsyth Manor is only a small part of John Galsworthy's literary works. All his works are about 30 volumes. Manor (1907) is a sequel to The Man with Property, which is probably the best book outside the Forsyte family series. In The Noble House (19 1 1), he mocked the upper class, but did not satirize the success of the middle class he was more familiar with. Compared with radicals like herbert george wells and George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy was more of a humanitarian, but he was also dissatisfied with social customs. This can be seen clearly from his novels and plays. John Galsworthy also wrote many articles and pamphlets, advocating various causes he believed in.
John Galsworthy's creation was not greatly influenced by the First World War, although he was personally impacted. He donated all the manuscript fees of three novels and one script during World War II to the war institutions and veterans' resettlement departments. During the war, his works were few, not only because he was worried about the current situation, but also because he and his wife received military training in a French military hospital for almost half a year from the winter of 19 16 to the winter of 19 17. In a short time, he also edited a journal for disabled soldiers. At the end of World War I, he refused to accept knighthood.
In the decade after the war, John Galsworthy wrote several most popular and successful plays and most books about forsyth. The end of a chapter was completed at the end of his life, and it was also his last novel, which was published after his death. John Galsworthy also wrote some articles about literature and his favorite occupation. He loved traveling, which lasted almost until his death. 193365438+1October 3 1, he ended his life in an apartment in hampstead, London.
Three. Nobel Prize in Literature Prize Speech 1932 Anders Austrin, Member of the Nobel Prize Jury of Swedish Academy;
A tireless and honest creative desire constantly inspired John Galsworthy. Throughout his writing career, it seems that it has developed very smoothly. However, his choice of literary career is not without resistance. As the English saying goes, he was born in a rich family, which means that he has money at home and no worries about the economy. He studied at Harrow College and Oxford University and chose law. After graduation, he didn't have a real job, but he traveled all over the world. At the age of 28, he was urged by a female friend to start writing. But it's just for fun for him. Gentlemen still have innate prejudice against the writing industry, and he seems to be no exception. He published his first two novels under the pseudonym John Sin John. The author who entered the literary world was very strict with himself and soon withdrew all two versions of the book. It was not until he published The Pharisees on the Island (1904) at the age of 37 that he really started his writing career. Two years later, a man with an industry came out, which initially established his reputation. This is also the beginning of his masterpiece The Forsyte Family.
In the novels satirizing the Pharisees on the island, the main features of John Galsworthy's future works have begun to take shape. The novel describes an English gentleman who lived abroad for a long time and forgot the traditional way of thinking and feelings of the British, so he severely criticized the fault of his motherland, and a Belgian tramp he met in the British train carriage also added fuel to the fire. As a result, the foreigner greatly influenced his fate. At that time, John Galsworthy himself was a world citizen who had just returned to China. Like Bernard Shaw, he planned to fight against the old capitalist aristocratic society. However, the Irish mainly use wit as a weapon, while the British intend to influence people's emotions and imagination. John Galsworthy's early novels satirize the hypocrisy and selfishness of the British ruling class, and his later works continue to play this theme, but each work has a different emphasis. He tirelessly opposed the narrow and cold side of British national character. His persistence in attacking social evils shows that he deeply feels the injustice of the world.
With forsyth's personality type, he targeted the wealthy businessmen in the upper middle class. Although these people have not yet become real gentlemen landlords, they worship them wholeheartedly and instinctively take the well-known ideal gentleman who is strict, calm, self-righteous and domineering as the imitation object. They are especially careful to guard against those dangerous feelings, but sometimes it is inevitable that there will be some mistakes, so that passion will disrupt their lives and freedom will seize a place in the world of property instinct. Beauty-represented by Elaine here-refuses to live with "hardworking people", and Soames Forsyte, as an hardworking person, is disgusted with her attitude. He almost became a tragic figure in the end. This forsyth's first novel is a masterpiece of human nature. It is solid, powerful and independent. I'm not sure whether John Galsworthy wanted to write a sequel from the beginning. Anyway, when he started writing about Foces again, it was already 15 years, and the consequences of the world war greatly changed the prospect of life. The man with property has been expanded, adding riding a tiger (1920), renting (192 1) and two short stories as interludes. At this point, the Forsyte family is all finished. However, John Galsworthy felt that the younger generation of the family had not explained clearly, so he wrote a modern comedy trilogy with the same structure, including White Ape (1924), Silver Spoon (1926) and Swan Song (1928). These two sets of trilogy are great literary achievements. Novelists describe their times through the fate of three generations, and successfully grasp this extremely difficult theme from the depth and breadth. His achievement is an unforgettable achievement in English literature. Considering that the European continent had already made masterpieces in this field when he made this attempt, his efforts were all the more valuable.
The prospect of this chronicle novel describes the daily life of the Forsyte family, which is a variety of personal experiences, conflicts and tragicomedy of life. But you can see the dark longitude and latitude lines of historical events in the background. Every reader must remember that chapter, which describes Soames and his second wife standing by the fence of Hyde Park to watch Queen Victoria's funeral on a gloomy day, and then briefly reviews the years since the Queen ascended the throne: "Social atmosphere has changed, habits have changed, people have become farther away from apes, and God has become a god of wealth-the god of wealth has been praised as God." In Forsyte's series of novels, we see how the Victorian era evolved and disintegrated until our time. The first trilogy shows the period of the integration of British aristocrats and the rich, and describes the change of the concept of "gentleman", which is the young autumn of the former rich in storm warning. The second trilogy, called Comedy instead of Family History, describes a profound crisis in New England. Its task is to build the ruins of the past and the temporary barracks in wartime into the future home. The People's Gallery is colorful and amazing. Powerful businessmen, wayward ladies in society, old-fashioned gossips, rebellious young girls, gentlemen, politicians, artists, children who go in and out of clubs, and even all kinds of dogs-the last one is particularly favored by John Galsworthy-all these various things appear in the panorama of London life, with concrete and vivid images.
Some cases appear repeatedly, which records the ups and downs of a family with a certain genetic trait interestingly. The portrayal of each character is extraordinary. What is dominant is the law of social life.
It is also enlightening to observe how John Galsworthy's own views have gradually evolved in these novels. At first, he criticized the existing culture radically, then he became more fair and objective in evaluating things, and finally he adopted a more free and purely humanitarian concept. A common example is his treatment of Soames. Soames is a standard ethnic type. At first, he was ridiculed, but later, his brushwork gained some respect. Although the author seems reluctant, this respect gradually increases and eventually turns into real sympathy. John Galsworthy made full use of this sympathy, and his comprehensive description of Soames is the most memorable part of Forsyte's family history and future comedies. It is easy for people to think of a wonderful plot near the end of Song of the Swan. Old Soames drove to the village where his ancestors lived on the west coast, and found the location of Forsyth Farm with the help of an old household registration map. Now there is only one stone left to mark the old site. A faintly visible path took him to a valley full of grass and broom. He breathed against the fresh and violent sea breeze and was a little drunk for a while; He put on his coat and sat down against the rock, lost in thought. It was in this desolate land that his ancestors built houses with their own hands? Are they the first residents here? He is deep in thought. Ancestor England appeared before his eyes. At that time, Britain "used horses to transport goods, little soot, burning peat and firewood, and his wife would never leave you-perhaps because they couldn't." He sat for a long time, immersed in all kinds of feelings for his hometown. "His heart was touched, as if the salty spirit of independence in this desolate area remained in his bone marrow. Old Jolyon, his father and other uncles-no wonder they are independent and uninhibited, because the loneliness here and the air by the sea are condensed in their blood, and they are sour by these stains-don't want to give up, can't give up and don't want to die. For a while, he even seemed to know himself. "
For John Galsworthy, Soames became the last representative of static old England. We are told that he never cheats, and his attitude may be unbearable, but it is true. In this way, John Galsworthy's realism pays tribute to Soames's calm and simple dignity, which is considered as a fundamental factor in his evaluation of human nature. As time goes by, with cynicism and lazy indulgence becoming more and more modern, the chronicler finds that some features that were not appreciated in the past may actually be the secrets that Britain can resist the enemy and refuse to change. Generally speaking, John Galsworthy's later novels are permeated with patriotic feelings of self-defense. The same feeling is also revealed in his description of home and nature. The author expresses these feelings with more warmth and anxiety, with regret to protect some precious things that are doomed to be lost. This may be an old room, where people used to linger, as if it would last forever. This may also be an English garden, where the bright September sun shines on the bronze Zelkova leaves and the hundred-year-old Chinese fir fence wall.
Time does not allow me to dwell on John Galsworthy's other works in this way, although they are often comparable in quality to the Forsyte series. The advantage of the latter lies only in its epic scale. The author's important mature figures should be found in manor (1907), friendship (190 1) and deep safflower (19 13). Manor describes the life of a country mansion, in which Mrs. Boenders is perhaps the most exquisite female image in Gao's works. She is a perfect unpretentious woman who has experienced a limited number of small tragedies. Those truly noble natures are always entangled in such tragedies and are doomed to be bound by the shackles of tradition and even destroyed. Friendship shows an amateur victim of social conscience, an aesthete, and his rigorous brushwork is mixed with sympathy and irony. He felt uneasy about the sufferings of the proletariat in London, but he could not take decisive measures to put his altruistic impulse into action. In this novel, we also meet the original old Mr. Si Tong, a person who is always daydreaming endlessly in the night sky alone. He is indeed the most memorable type of Gao's works. Let's not forget Crimson Flowers, which is a psychological sonata played by talented musicians. According to people's passion and forbearance at different ages, it plays various tone sandhi. Even in short stories, John Galsworthy often arouses readers' emotional reactions by contrasting light and shade with visual effects like pictures. When the narrative saturated with his personal style becomes extremely vivid, he can impress readers in just a few pages, for example, when he tells the simple experience of a German shoemaker in Quality. That short story tells how excellent traditional skills are struggling desperately in front of cheap industrial products.
John Galsworthy's narrative art appealed to education and a sense of justice, which often influenced his outlook on life and habits at that time. So is his play. They often participate directly in social discussions and have caused obvious changes in at least one area, that is, prison management in Britain. In his plays, the combination of extremely rich thoughts and high wit and skills has produced excellent dramatic effects. The will tendency embodied in the play is always fair and full of human feelings. In "The Forest" (1924), he revealed how ruthless greed used the heroic idea of British conquering the world to get money. Exhibition (1925) shows the individual's sense of powerlessness in front of the media through a family tragedy: the savage curiosity of newspapers runs like a deaf machine without restraint, and no one can even be found responsible for its bad consequences.
The theme of loyalty is about honor: loyalty has been tested, and its operation in different fields such as family, enterprise, occupation and country has been investigated fairly. The advantages of these and other dramas lie in their logical structure and very concentrated actions, and sometimes they also have a poetic atmosphere that cannot be ignored. Here are dove (19 12) and Xiao Ai (19 15), although they have not achieved great success on the stage. Generally speaking, although John Galsworthy's plays are slightly inferior to his novels in art, they also clearly show how strongly he attached to his early yearning for freedom. Shelley once put wings on the ideal of freedom and lit the flame of dawn. Even in Gao's relatively calm works, he is a staunch opponent of all kinds of spiritual and material oppression, and is sensitive person who hates indifference and demands fairness.
Turgenev was one of his earliest skill teachers. Just like the works of that charming Russian writer, there is a clear musical beauty in his novels, which can capture and retain people's secret feelings. His intuition never fails, so that he can only make a little reference or leave only half a hint. And his unique irony, even his style is different from other writers. Satire varies. There is a big kind of uncertainty, such as frost on the window of a cold room where the fire has long been extinguished. But there is also the irony close to life, which comes from enthusiasm, concern and kindness of human nature. This is John Galsworthy's irony. His satire seems to face up to the evil tragicomedy and ask: Why is this happening? Why is it inevitable? Is there any remedy? John Galsworthy sometimes even let nature participate in various satirical dramas, and let wind, clouds, flowers and birds emphasize the pain or sweetness of events. With the help of irony, he can often successfully arouse people's psychological imagination, which is always the best alliance of understanding and sympathy.
John Galsworthy once summarized his artistic motto as harmony, symmetry and balance. These express the natural characteristics of his thoughts and a spiritual pursuit. Perhaps because it is too difficult to achieve, this ideal is often doubted nowadays. The poet once severely criticized the typical self-sufficient gentleman for a long time, but we soon found that he himself undoubtedly injected new life into the ancient concept of gentleman, keeping it in touch with the aesthetic instinct close to life and unrestrained. John galsworthy, an artist, brought those temperament characteristics into full play and expressed them with the word "gentleness" which is the same root as "gentleman" in English. These characteristics are all embodied in his works, which is a cultural contribution to our times.
Unfortunately, Mr. John Galsworthy is in poor health and can't come here to receive the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature in person today, so the British representative, Minister Clark Cole, accepted the award on his behalf.
Now please accept Nobel Prize in Literature, your famous writer, awarded by His Majesty the King of Sweden.
Fourthly, critics' reaction to John Galsworthy's Nobel Prize:
Not everyone can look at John Galsworthy's works like the Nobel Committee. In the 1920s, Freud's psychoanalysis provided a new way to gain insight into people's motivation. Writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf have shifted the center of novel creation from the external objective world to the internal subjective world. Although the realism of John Galsworthy's works does show a modern tendency, they still think that his direct narrative works are out of date, almost the same as Victorian works. When John Galsworthy died just over seven weeks after winning the prize, Virginia Woolf said rudely that "that self-righteous old fogey" was dead.
Woolf thinks that John Galsworthy has nothing in common with a generation in the 1920s and 1930s. Few people are as abrupt as Woolf, but her views are very representative. "New Republic" weekly commented that the praise for John Galsworthy "came too late to have the significance of the times. Some writers are not recognized in time and will be forgotten over time. Mr. John Galsworthy is an obvious example. " . Those who have experienced the trauma of World War I more personally than John Galsworthy are not interested in the insensitivity caused by snobbery and materialism in the living room described in John Galsworthy's works. People in the trenches, property is nothing. The modern world is more violent and irrational than the one described by John Galsworthy. The National magazine also thinks: "He was forgotten by his contemporaries ..."
Few people deny John Galsworthy's achievements, even though some people think that it would be great if Nobel Prize in Literature could award it at the time of his greatest ability and reputation. It is generally believed that humanitarianism in John Galsworthy should be recognized. He devoted a lot of time and money to charity, and he paid attention to tradition and etiquette, which made people regard him as a literary leader. He has never sought such a leadership position himself, but he is willing to play a leading role in the issues he cares about. It is gratifying that the Nobel Prize has acknowledged this social fact.
It wasn't that people thought John Galsworthy didn't deserve Nobel Prize in Literature. He comes from the past, and many critics think that it would be nice if the Nobel Prize were awarded to him or some other writers who reflected the new reality after World War I earlier.