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{{Short description|Irish literary critic (1897–1970)}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Enid Starkie
| image = Enid Starkie (1897–1970).jpg
| alt = 
| caption =
| birth_name = Enid Mary Starkie
| birth_date = {{birth date|1897|08|18|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Killiney]], Ireland
| death_date = {{death date and age|1970|04|21|1897|08|18|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Walton Street, Oxford]], England<ref>{{cite journal|last=Adams|first=Pauline|year=2009|title=Starkie, Enid Mary|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/starkie-enid-mary-a8261|website=[[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]|doi=10.3318/dib.008261.v1|url-access=subscription|doi-access=free}}</ref>
| other_names =
| occupation = [[Literary critic]]
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}

'''Enid Mary Starkie''' [[CBE]] (18 August 1897 – 21 April 1970), was an Irish literary critic, known for her biographical works on French poets. She was a Fellow of [[Somerville College, Oxford]], and Lecturer and then [[Reader (academic rank)|Reader]] in the University.

==Early life==
Starkie was born in [[Killiney]], [[County Dublin]], Ireland. She was the eldest daughter of [[Rt. Hon.]] [[William Joseph Myles (WJM) Starkie]] (1860–1920) and May Caroline Walsh. The academic [[Walter Starkie]] was her brother. The artist [[Edyth Starkie]] was her aunt.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.daniel-huntfineart.com/artworksmanager/2018/7/24/edyth-starkie-1867-1941-irish |title= Edyth Starkie (1867 - 1941, Irish) |last= |first=|date= |website= Daniel Hunt Fine Art |publisher= |access-date= October 15, 2025 |quote=}}</ref> When she was two years of age her father accepted the post of Resident Commissioner of Education for Ireland. In [[Edwardian period|Edwardian]] Dublin her upbringing was steeped in studies. Her father hired a French governess, Leonie Cora, to tutor his children in French and music. The children became imbued with everything French, from cooking to [[Le Printemps]] catalogues. Enid wrote, "My French governess never stopped talking of France, and she talked with all the nostalgia of the exile."<ref>Enid Starkie, ''A Lady's Child'', (1941)</ref> Mlle. Cora had been a pupil of the French pianist and composer [[Raoul Pugno]], and Enid learnt to play the piano, going on to win second medal for two years in succession at [[Feis Ceoil]], the annual music festival in [[Dublin]]. She was educated at [[Alexandra College]] in Dublin, [[Somerville College, Oxford|Somerville College]] at the [[University of Oxford]], and the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] in Paris.<ref>[[Joanna Richardson]], ''Enid Starkie: A Biography'', (1974)</ref>

==Oxford==
Starkie read Modern Languages at Oxford and obtained a First in 1920.<ref>''Oxford University Calendar 1922'', Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1922, p. 207.</ref><ref>_____, "Oxford–Saturday. Degrees for Women". Yorkshire Post, 1 November 1920. 9.</ref> She taught modern languages at [[Exeter University|Exeter]] and then in the [[Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford]]. Her biography of [[Baudelaire]] (1933) was for many English readers their first introduction to the poet.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://fs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/XXIV/4/439 |title=DR ENID STARKIE (1897-1970) -- A. F. XXIV (4): 439 -- French Studies |website=fs.oxfordjournals.org |access-date=27 January 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709155242/http://fs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/XXIV/4/439 |archive-date=9 July 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> She wrote perceptively on [[André Gide]] (1953), securing him an honorary doctorate at Oxford in 1947. She also played a major part in establishing the poetic reputation of [[Arthur Rimbaud]] (1938), receiving the first doctorate to be given in the Faculty of Modern Languages for her work ''Rimbaud in Abyssinia''. She published two major volumes on [[Flaubert]] (1967, 1971). In 1951 she campaigned successfully to have the quinquennially elected [[Professor of Poetry]] at Oxford be a practising poet rather than a critic. She argued that "the Chair ought to go to someone outside the University, to someone who would not otherwise be heard in Oxford. There were enough people already engaged in talking about poetry as critics, indeed too many."<ref>Dan Davin, ''Closing Times'', (1975) p. 73</ref> [[C. S. Lewis]] was defeated by [[Cecil Day-Lewis]] in the first subsequent election. She also campaigned successfully for [[W. H. Auden]] (1956), [[Robert Graves]] (1961), and [[Edmund Blunden]] (1966) in subsequent elections for the Chair, leading one critic to complain that, "This was a serious academic affair until Dr. Starkie turned it into something like the Oxford and Cambridge boat race."<ref>New York Times, 6 February 1966</ref> She also secured an honorary doctorate for [[Jean Cocteau]] in 1956.

She was honoured as an officer of the [[Legion d'honneur]] in 1958, and as a [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] in 1967. Many people regarded her as [[eccentricity (behaviour)|eccentric]]. An article in [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] portrayed her as "a brilliant Rimbaud scholar who pub-crawls about Oxford in bright red slacks and beret while smoking cigars."<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828804,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110205060220/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828804,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=5 February 2011 | magazine=Time | title=Education: Poetry & Politics | date=24 February 1961 | accessdate=2 May 2010}}</ref> [[Francis Steegmuller]] wrote, "One of the things I most enjoyed about her was her true eccentricity, in a world where false eccentricity has become a kind of conformity. My wife is the novelist, [[Shirley Hazzard]], and I always wonder when Enid will appear in one of her books."<ref>Joanna Richardson, ''Enid Starkie: A Biography'', (1973) p. 250</ref>

==Works==
* ''Les sources du lyrisme dans la poésie d'[[Emile Verhaeren]]'' (1927)
* ''[[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]]'' (1933)
* ''[[Rimbaud]] en Abyssinie'' (1933)
* ''Arthur Rimbaud in Abyssinia'' (1937)
* ''Arthur Rimbaud'' (1938) revised twice
* ''A Lady's Child'' (1941) autobiography
* ''[[Petrus Borel]] en Algérie'' (1950); (written in French)
* ''The French Mind: Studies in Honour of Gustave Rudler'' (1952); editor with Will Moore and [[Rhoda Sutherland]]<ref name=rhodaenid>[books.google.co.uk/books?id=RmlQQwAACAAJ The French Mind], Studies in honour of Gustave Rudler, Oxford 1952</ref>
* ''[[André Gide]]'' (1953)
* ''Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope'' (1954)
* ''Three Studies in Modern French Literature ([[Marcel Proust|Proust]], Gide, [[François Mauriac|Mauriac]])'' (1960); with J. M. Cocking and Martin Jarrett-Kerr
* ''Arthur Rimbaud'' (1961) the final revision, a complete re-evaluation based on newly discovered materials. A New Directions book
* ''From [[Théophile Gautier|Gautier]] to [[T. S. Eliot|Eliot]]: 1851–1939; the Influence of France on English Literature'' (1962)
* ''[[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]]: The Making of the Master'' (1967)
* ''Flaubert the Master: A Critical and Biographical Study, 1856-1880'' (1971)

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*[[Joanna Richardson|Richardson, Joanna]]. ''Enid Starkie'' London: John Murray, 1973
*''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Starkie, Enid Mary (1897–1970), French scholar by Peter France.

==External links==
* {{cite web|url=http://appbio.net/biographies/Starkie-%20Enid%20Mary-636F.html |title=AppBio biography of Dr Starkie }}{{dead link|date=December 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?search=ss&firstRun=true&sText=enid+starkie&LinkID=mp08569 Enid Mary Starkie (1897–1970), Critic and university teacher], [[National Portrait Gallery (London)|National Portrait Gallery]], London
* for a wonderful lambasting of her critiques of Flaubert, see "Flaubert's Parrot" by Julian Barnes [[Flaubert's Parrot]]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starkie, Enid}}
[[Category:1897 births]]
[[Category:1970 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish women non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish biographers]]
[[Category:Literary critics of French]]
[[Category:Scholars and academics from County Dublin]]
[[Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford]]
[[Category:People educated at Alexandra College]]
[[Category:People from Killiney]]
[[Category:Irish literary critics]]
[[Category:Writers from County Dublin]]

Enid Starkie - Revision history

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