The M.L. Rosenthal Award for achievement in Yeats studies, originally called the “Golden Apple Award,” was given first to M.L. Rosenthal (inset), the prominent critic, poet and academic associated with New York University. He died in 1996. His New York Times obituary says, “Mr. Rosenthal brought a sharp eye and an independent mind to the study of contemporary poetry,” noting that as founder and first director of the NYU Poetics Institute, he focused on "the pressures and processes shaping a poem." Among his books of criticism is Running to Paradise: Yeats's Poetic Art. After his death, the award was renamed in his honor, and later recipients voted to call themselves Rosenthal Fellows. The first recipients were selected by the society’s board. Currently, Rosenthal Fellows nominate and select recipients. 

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Awards for 2020-2022 have been postponed because of the pandemic, which prevented the Rosenthal Fellows from meeting to determine their choices for these years.

9 – Jahan Ramazani 2

2019 – Jahan Ramazani 

2017 – James Pethica

2018 – William H. O’Donnell

2017 – James Pethica

2015 – J.C.C. Mays

2014 – Colin Smythe

2013 – Jared Curtis

2011 – Meg Harper

2010 – Warwick Gould and Deirdre Toomey

2009 – Terrence Brown

2007 – John Kelly

2006 – Ronald Schuchard

2005 – George Mills Harper and David R. Clark

2004 – Stephen Maxfield Parrish

2003 – Roy Foster

2002 – Jon Stallworthy

2001 – Ann Saddlemyer

2000 – George Bornstein

1999 – Helen Vendler

1998 – Elizabeth Butler Cullingford

1995 – Denis Donoghue

1994 – Richard Finneran

1993 – M.L. Rosenthal

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