Sully Prudhomme Sully Prudhomme René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme (; 16 March 1839 – 6 September 1907) was a French poet and essayist. He was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901. Born in Paris, Prudhomme originally studied to be an engineer, but turned to philosophy and later to poetry; he declared it as his intention to create scientific poetry for modern times. In character sincere and melancholic, he was linked to the Parnassus school, although, at the same time, his work displays characteristics of its own. Prudhomme was born to a French shopkeeper. Prudhomme attended the Lycée
James Sully of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, where he was succeeded by Carveth Read. An adherent of the associationist his school of psychology, his views had great affinity with those of Alexander Bain. He wrote monographs on subjects such as pessimism, and psychology textbooks, some of the first in English, including "The Human Mind "(1892). His 1881 "Illusions" was commended by both Freud and Wundt. Sully opened an experimental psychology laboratory at University College London in January 1898. In 1901 he was one of the founder members of the British Psychological Society and in fact personally