William Riley Parker Prize

The William Riley Parker Prize is the oldest award given by the Modern Language Association,^[1] the principal professional organization in the United States and Canada for scholars of language and literature.^[2] The Parker Prize is awarded each year for an “outstanding article” published in PMLA—the association's primary journal, and widely considered the most prestigious in the study of modern languages and literatures.^[3][4] It was first awarded in 1964 to David J. DeLaura, then a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, for his article, “Arnold and Carlyle,” which had been published in the March 1964 issue of PMLA.^[5][6]

In 1968, the prize was named for former PMLA editor and MLA Secretary William Riley Parker.^[1] Parker, a professor at Indiana University, was a Milton biographer whose scholarship also considered the formation of literary studies in the United States.^[7]