Newdigate Prize
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize, more commonly the Newdigate Prize, is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for the Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded in 1806 as a memorial to Sir Roger Newdigate (1719–1806).[1] The winning poem is announced at Encaenia.[2] Instructions are published as follows: "The length of the poem is not to exceed 300 lines.[2] The metre is not restricted to heroic couplets, but dramatic form of composition is not allowed." It is one of the many prizes awarded by this university to students and graduate students.[3]
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 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 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[11]
- 1963: not awarded
- 1964: Disease. James Hamilton-Paterson[12]
- 1965: Fear. Peter Jay
- 1966: not awarded
- 1967: not awarded
- 1968: The Opening of Japan. James Fenton[13]
- 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: The Tides. 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[14]
- 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
- 2000: A Book of Hours.
21st century
- 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[15]
- 2014: The Centrifuge, Andrew Wynn Owen[16]
- 2015: not awarded
- 2016: Sinai, Mary Anne Clark[17]
- 2017: Borderlines, Dominic Hand (published in Oxford Poetry XVII.i) [18][19]
See also
References
Notes
- "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.
- "Newdigate Prize | British literary prize". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- "Prizes and Studentships". www.english.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- Boyd Litzinger, Donald Smalley (1995). Richard Browning: The Critical Heritage. Routledge. p. 93. ISBN 0-415-13451-X.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
- "Ruskin, John (1819–1900), art critic and social critic". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24291. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- Cromwell: A Prize Poem, Recited in the Theatre, Oxford; June 28, 1843 at Google Books
- "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. A Study Guide for Donald Hall's "Names of Horses". Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-4103-5358-0.
- "Review: Stanley, I Presume by Stanley Johnson". the Guardian. 22 March 2009. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
- 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.
Sources
- Richter, editor, Annie J. (1946). Literary Prizes and Their Winners. R. R. Bowker Co.