Enid Starkie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Enid Starkie
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| Born |
Enid Mary Starkie
18 August 1897 Killiney, Ireland
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| Died | 21 April 1970 (aged 72) Walton Street, Oxford, England
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| Occupation | Literary critic |
Enid Mary Starkie (CBE) was an Irish writer and expert on literature. She was born on August 18, 1897, and passed away on April 21, 1970.
Enid Starkie was famous for her books about French poets. She worked at Somerville College, Oxford, which is part of the University of Oxford. She was a lecturer and then a Reader, which is a senior academic role.
Early Life and Education
Enid Starkie was born in Killiney, a town in County Dublin, Ireland. She was the oldest daughter of William Joseph Myles (WJM) Starkie and May Caroline Walsh. Her brother, Walter Starkie, also became an academic.
When Enid was two years old, her father became a top education official in Ireland. Growing up in Dublin, her family focused a lot on learning. They had a French governess named Leonie Cora. She taught the children French language and music.
The children learned to love everything French, from cooking to French magazines. Enid remembered that her governess "never stopped talking of France." Enid also learned to play the piano. She won second place for two years in a row at the Feis Ceoil, a music festival in Dublin.
Enid went to Alexandra College in Dublin. Later, she studied at Somerville College, Oxford and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Life at Oxford University
Enid Starkie studied Modern Languages at Oxford and earned top grades in 1920. She taught modern languages first at Exeter University and then at Oxford.
Her book about the poet Baudelaire (published in 1933) was the first time many English readers learned about him. She also wrote a thoughtful book about André Gide in 1953. She helped Gide receive an honorary degree from Oxford in 1947.
Enid Starkie was very important in making the poet Arthur Rimbaud well-known. She wrote a book about him in 1938. For this work, she received the first doctorate ever given in Oxford's Modern Languages department. She also published two major books about the writer Gustave Flaubert in 1967 and 1971.
In 1951, she successfully argued for a change in how Oxford chose its Professor of Poetry. She believed this important role should go to a working poet, not just a critic. She felt there were already enough critics at the university. Her efforts led to poets like Cecil Day-Lewis, W. H. Auden, Robert Graves, and Edmund Blunden being chosen for the role.
Enid Starkie was honored for her work. In 1958, she became an officer of the Legion d'honneur, a high award from France. In 1967, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the UK.
Many people thought she was quite unique. One magazine described her as "a brilliant Rimbaud scholar who pub-crawls about Oxford in bright red slacks and beret while smoking cigars."
Published Works
Enid Starkie wrote many books, mostly about French literature and poets. Here are some of her notable works:
- Les sources du lyrisme dans la poésie d'Emile Verhaeren (1927)
- Baudelaire (1933)
- Rimbaud en Abyssinie (1933)
- Arthur Rimbaud in Abyssinia (1937)
- Arthur Rimbaud (1938) (revised several times)
- A Lady's Child (1941) (her autobiography)
- Petrus Borel en Algérie (1950) (written in French)
- The French Mind: Studies in Honour of Gustave Rudler (1952) (editor)
- André Gide (1953)
- Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope (1954)
- Three Studies in Modern French Literature (Proust, Gide, Mauriac) (1960)
- Arthur Rimbaud (1961) (a major updated version)
- From Gautier to Eliot: 1851–1939; the Influence of France on English Literature (1962)
- Flaubert: the Making of the Master (1967)
- Flaubert the Master (1971)
