Sully Prudhomme elected to the Académie française in 1881. Another distinction, "Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur", was to follow in 1895. After, "Le Bonheur", Prudhomme turned from poetry to write essays on aesthetics and philosophy. He published two important essays: "L'Expression dans les beaux-arts" (1884) and "Réflexions sur l'art des vers" (1892), a series of articles on Blaise Pascal in "La Revue des Deux Mondes" (1890), and an article on free will ("La Psychologie du Libre-Arbitre", 1906) in the "Revue de métaphysique et de morale". The first writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (given "in special recognition of his poetic
Sully Prudhomme (1874), permanently damaged his health. During his career, Prudhomme gradually shifted from the sentimental style of his first books towards a more personal style which unified the formality of the Parnassus school with his interest in philosophical and scientific subjects. The inspiration was clearly Lucretius's "De rerum natura", for the first book of which he made a verse translation. His philosophy was expressed in "La Justice" (1878) and "Le Bonheur" (1888). The extreme economy of means employed in these poems has, however, usually been judged as compromising their poetical quality without advancing their claims as works of philosophy. He was