Newdigate Prize
Award
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize , more commonly the Newdigate Prize , is awarded by the University of Oxford for the Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate student.[ 1] It was founded in 1806 as a memorial to Sir Roger Newdigate (1719–1806).[ 2] The winning poem is announced at Encaenia .[ 3] Instructions are published as follows: "The length of the poem is not to exceed 300 lines.[ 3] The metre is not restricted to heroic couplets , but dramatic form of composition is not allowed."
Overview
The first winner was John Wilson ("Christopher North"). Notable winners have included Robert Stephen Hawker , John Ruskin , Matthew Arnold , Laurence Binyon , Oscar Wilde , John Buchan , John Addington Symonds , James Laver , Donald Hall , James Fenton , P. M. Hubbard , and Alan Hollinghurst .
The parallel award given at the University of Cambridge is the Chancellor's Gold Medal .
Past titles and winners
Where known, the title of the winning poem is given, followed by the name of the author. Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
Notable 19th-century winners
1813: Francis Hawkins
1827: 'Pompeii', Robert Stephen Hawker
1829: 'Voyages of Discovery to the Polar Regions', Thomas Legh Claughton
1830: 'The African Desert', George Kettilby Rickards
1834: 'The Hospice of St. Bernard', Joseph Arnould [ 4]
1837: 'The Gypsies', Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
1838: 'The Exile of St. Helena', Joseph Henry Dart
1839: 'Salsette and Elephanta', John Ruskin [ 5]
1843: 'Cromwell', Matthew Arnold [ 6] [ 7]
1844: 'Battle of the Nile', Joseph Lloyd Brereton
1845: 'Petra', John William Burgon
1852: 'The Feast of Belshazzar', Sir Edwin Arnold
1853: 'The Ruins of Egyptian Thebes', Samuel Harvey Reynolds
1857: 'The Temple of Janus', Philip Stanhope Worsley [ 8]
1860: 'The Escorial', John Addington Symonds
1868: 'The Catacombs', John Alexander Stewart
1875: 'David Livingstone', George Earle Buckle
1877: John Brooks
1878: 'Ravenna', Oscar Wilde [ 7]
1880: 'Raleigh', Rennell Rodd
1883: John Bowyer Buchanan Nichols
1886: 'Savonarola', R. L. Gales
1887: 'Sakya-Muni: The Story of Buddha', Sidney A. Alexander
1888: 'Gordon in Africa', Arthur Waugh
1898: 'The Pilgrim Fathers', John Buchan
1890: 'Persephone', Laurence Binyon
1895: 'Montezuma', J. S. Arkwright
1900: 'Robespierre', Arthur Carré
20th century
1901: 'Galileo', William Garrod
1902: 'Minos', Ernest Wodehouse
1903: not awarded
1904: 'Delphi', George Bell
1905: 'Garibaldi', Arthur E. E. Reade
1906: 'The Death of Shelley', Geoffrey Scott
1907: 'Camoens', Robert Cruttwell
1908: 'Holyrood', Julian Huxley
1909: 'Michelangelo', Frank Ashton-Gwatkin
1910: 'Atlantis', Charles Bewley
1911: 'Achilles', Roger Heath
1912: 'Richard I Before Jerusalem', William Chase Greene
1913: 'Oxford', Maurice Roy Ridley
1914: 'The Burial of Sophocles', Robert William Sterling
1915: not awarded
1916: 'Venice', Russell Green
1917: suspended due to war
1918: suspended due to war
1919: 'France', P. H. B. Lyon
1920: 'The Lake of Garda', George Johnstone
1921: 'Cervantes', James Laver
1922: 'Mount Everest', James Reid
1923: 'London', Christopher Scaife
1924: 'Michelangelo', Franklin McDuffee
1925: 'Byron', Edgar McInnis
1926: not awarded
1927: 'Julia, Daughter of Claudius', Gertrude Trevelyan
1928: 'The Mermaid Tavern', Angela Cave
1929: 'The Sands of Egypt', Phyllis Hartnoll
1930: 'Daedalus', Josephine Fielding
1931: 'Vanity Fair', Michael Balkwill
1932: 'Sir Walter Scott', Richard Hennings
1933: 'Ovid among the Goths', Philip Maitland Hubbard [ 9]
1934: 'Fire', Edward Lowbury
1935: 'Canterbury', Allan Plowman
1936: 'Rain', David Winser
1937: 'The Man in the Moon', Margaret Stanley-Wrench
1938: 'Milton Blind', Michael Thwaites
1939: 'Dr Newman Revisits Oxford', Kenneth Kitchin
1940–1946: suspended due to war
1947: 'Nemesis', Merton Atkins
1948: 'Caesarion', Peter Way
1949: 'The Black Death', Peter Weitzman
1950: 'Eldorado', John Bayley
1951: 'The Queen of Sheba', Michael Hornyansky
1952: 'Exile', Donald Hall (published in OP 1953)[ 10]
1953: not awarded
1954: not awarded
1955: 'Elegy for a Dead Clown', (Edwin) Stuart Evans
1956: 'The Deserted Altar', David Posner
1957: 'Leviathan', Robert James Maxwell
1958: 'The Earthly Paradise', Jon Stallworthy
1959: not awarded
1960: 'A Dialogue between Caliban and Ariel', John Fuller
1961: not awarded
1962: 'May Morning', Stanley Johnson [ 7]
1963: not awarded
1964: 'Disease', James Hamilton-Paterson [ 11]
1965: 'Fear', Peter Jay
1966: not awarded
1967: not awarded
1968: 'The Opening of Japan', James Fenton [ 12]
1969: not awarded
1970: 'Instructions to a Painter', Charles Radice
1971: not awarded
1972: 'The Ancestral Face', Neil Rhodes
1973: 'The Wife's Tale', Christopher Mann
1974: 'Death of a Poet', Alan Hollinghurst
1975: 'Inland', Andrew Motion
1976: 'Hostages', David Winzar
1977: 'The Fool', Michael King
1978: not awarded
1979: not awarded
1980: 'Inflation', Simon Higginson
1981: not awarded
1982: 'Souvenirs', Gordon Wattles
1983: 'Triumphs', Peter McDonald (published in OP I.2)
1984: 'Fear', James Leader
1985: 'Magic', Robert Twigger [ 13]
1986: 'An Epithalamion', William Morris
1987: 'Memoirs of Tiresias', Bruce Gibson and Michael Suarez (joint winners)
1988: 'Elegy', Mark Wormald
1989: 'The House', Jane Griffiths
1990: 'Mapping', Roderick Clayton
1991: not awarded
1992: 'Green Thought', Fiona Sampson
1993: 'The Landing', Caron Röhsler
1994: 'Making Sense', James Merino
1995: 'Judith with the Head of Holofernes', Antony Dunn (published in OP IX.1)
1996: not awarded
1997: not awarded
1998: not awarded
1999: not awarded
21st century
2000: 'A Book of Hours'.
2005: 'Lyons', Arina Patrikova
2006: 'BEE-POEMS', Paul Thomas Abbott
2007: Meirion Jordan
2008: 'Returning, 1945', Rachel Piercey
2009: 'Allotments', Arabella Currie
2010: 'The Mapmaker's Daughter', Lavinia Singer
2011: not awarded
2012: not awarded
2013: 'Edgelands', Daisy Syme-Taylor[ 14]
2014: 'The Centrifuge', Andrew Wynn Owen[ 15]
2015: not awarded
2016: 'Sinai', Mary Anne Clark[ 16]
2017: 'Borderlines', Dominic Hand (published in Oxford Poetry XVII.i)[ 17] [ 18]
2018: not awarded[ 19]
2019: not awarded[ 20]
2020: 'the summer critter speaks not of frost.', Rachel Ka Yin Leung [ 21] [ 22]
2021: 'Koinobionts', Annabelle Fuller[ 23]
2022: 'pecking orders', Maggie Wang[ 24]
2023: 'The girl I saw through the James Webb Telescope', Nicholas Stone[ 25] [ 26]
2024: 'After 'Horses, Peacefully Farting and Snoring' and 'At the Papal Palace', Shaw Worth [ 27]
See also
References
Notes
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . www.english.ox.ac.uk . Retrieved 28 April 2023 . The prize is open to current matriculated undergraduate students of the university.
^ "Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize" . Oxford Poetry . Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2012 . Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize for English Verse was founded in 1806 as a memorial to Sir Roger, fifth baronet (1719–1806) and Oxford university politician.
^ a b "Newdigate Prize | British literary prize" . Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved 12 December 2020 .
^ Boyd Litzinger; Donald Smalley (1995). Richard Browning: The Critical Heritage . Routledge. p. 93. ISBN 0-415-13451-X .
^ Hewison, Robert (2004). "Ruskin, John (1819–1900), art critic and social critic" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/24291 . ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8 . Retrieved 12 December 2020 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ Cromwell: A Prize Poem, Recited in the Theatre, Oxford; June 28, 1843 at Google Books
^ a b c "Review: Stanley, I Presume by Stanley Johnson" . the Guardian . 22 March 2009. Retrieved 12 December 2020 .
^ Abbott, Claude Colleer (1955). The Correspondence of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Richard Watson Dixon (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press . p. 5.
^ "Mr. P. M. Hubbard". The Times . 19 March 1980. p. 16.
^ Learning, Gale, Cengage (2016). A Study Guide for Donald Hall's "Names of Horses" . Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-4103-5358-0 . {{cite book }}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link )
^ Thomson, Ian (5 June 2004). "Profile: James Hamilton-Paterson" . the Guardian . Retrieved 12 December 2020 .
^ "Professor James Fenton" . British Council Literature . British Council . Retrieved 14 January 2016 .
^ "Learning curve | The Guardian | guardian.co.uk" . www.theguardian.com . Retrieved 12 December 2020 .
^ "Merton Student Wins Newdigate Prize" . Merton College, Oxford. Retrieved 27 May 2016 .
^ "Andrew Wynn Owen Wins the Newdigate Prize" . Magdalen College, Oxford. Retrieved 27 May 2016 .
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . University of Oxford Faculty of English. Retrieved 27 October 2016 . In 2016 the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize was awarded to Mary Anne Clark for her entry 'Sinai'.
^ "Faculty Prizewinners Announced" . University of Oxford Faculty of English. Retrieved 1 June 2017 .
^ "Oriel Undergraduate Dominic Hand Wins University's Newdigate Prize for Poetry" . Retrieved 2 July 2017 .
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . University of Oxford Faculty of English. Retrieved 4 March 2019 . In 2018 the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize was not awarded.
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . University of Oxford Faculty of English. Retrieved 12 June 2019 . In 2019 the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize was not awarded.
^ "Prizes and Studentships | Faculty of English" . 2 June 2020. Archived from the original on 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2020 .
^ "Sir Roger Newdigate prize awarded to Leung Rachel Ka Yin" . University of Oxford . 10 June 2020. Retrieved 11 November 2020 .
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . University of Oxford Faculty of English. Retrieved 10 May 2021 . In 2021 the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize was awarded to Annabelle Fuller for her entry 'Koinobionts'.
^ "Maggie Wang wins the Sir Roger Newdigate Prize with her poem 'pecking orders' " . www.english.ox.ac.uk . Retrieved 28 April 2023 .
^ "HMC Law student wins Sir Roger Newdigate Prize" . www.hmc.ox.ac.uk . Retrieved 26 May 2023 .
^ "Sir Roger Newdigate Prize 2023: winner announced" . www.english.ox.ac.uk . Retrieved 26 May 2023 .
^ "Prizes and Studentships" . www.english.ox.ac.uk . Retrieved 3 May 2024 .
Sources
Richter, editor, Annie J. (1946). Literary Prizes and Their Winners . R. R. Bowker Co.