Oscar Wilde Is Awarded the Newdigate Prize

Oscar Wilde was awarded the Newdigate Prize for Poetry for Ravenna in his last year at Oxford.

Wilde's winning the Newdigate Prize and his earning a double first in "Greats" helped to spread his fame beyond the university. Previous winners of the Newdigate Prize included Matthew Arnold; W. H. Mallock, the author of The New Republic; and William Money Hardinge, the undergraduate whose homoerotic relationship with Walter Pater led Benjamin Jowett, the powerful master of Balliol, to deny Pater an important promotion.

Some time ago the public journals announced that the Newdigate prize for Poetry in the University of Oxford had this year been gained by Mr. Oscar Wilde of Magdalen College. This announcament had some interest for such Irish readers as recognised in this latest winner of the undergraduate Blue Ribbon of Literature a youthful countryman of their own, the youngest son of Sir William Wilde and "Speranza," himself a faithful but too infrequent contributor to this magazine.