Walter [Fitzwilliam] Starkie (1894-1976)


Life
b. 9 Aug. 1894, Dublin; br. of Enid Starkie [q.v.] and son of a TCD Fellow; Shrewsbury, and TCD; with YMCA (var. Red Cross) in Italy during World War I; lecturer in Romance Languages (Italian), TCD, 1920; Fellow, 1924; Prof. in Spanish, and lect. in Italian, 1926-1947; Abbey Director, 1927-42, being co-opted on death of Lady Gregory; travelled with gypsies, troubadour-fashion, producing Raggle-Taggle (1933), set in the Balkans, followed by Spanish Raggle-Taggle (1934) and Gypsy Folklore and Music (1935);
 
he also issued The Waveless Plain (1938), an Italian memoir; settled in Madrid as head of British Institute, 1940; In Sara’s Tents (1953); The Road to Santiago (1957); Prof. in Residence, University of California, 1962-70; Scholars and Gypsies (1963), an autobiography; his awards incl. CMG, CBE, Legion d’Honneur, Knight of the Order of Alfonso XII, and Knight of the Order of Crown of Italy; MIAL; d. 2 Nov. 1976, in Madrid. NCBE DIB DIW DIL KUN OCIL

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Works
Scholarship & art history
  • Jacinto Benavente: A Critical Study (London: OUP 1921, 1924), 218pp.
  • The “Commedia dell’ Arte#1448; and the Roman Comedy, in Proceedings of the RIA, Vo. 36, sect. C., No. 18 (Dublin 1924).
  • Carlo Goldoni and the “commedia dell’arte” by Walter Starkie, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 37, 3 [Archaeology, Celtic studies, history, linguistics, and literature; Section C] (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, & Co.; & London: Williams & Norgate 1925), pp.[53]-86.
  • Modern Spain and Its Literature: a course of three lectures delivered at the Rice Institute on 20, 21 & 22 March 1929, in The Rice Institute Pamphlet, 16, 2 (Houston, Texas: Rice Inst.: April 1929), pp.47-110pp. [I: Personalities of modern Spain; II: The drama of Spain; III: A modern Don Quixote].
  • Bajo los puentes: 33 originales de José Porta, with a prelude [Preludia] by Walter Starkie (Barcelona 1946), fol. [engravings of subjects from Spanish gipsy life].
  • Paintings and Drawings of the Gypsies of Granada (London: Athelnay Books 1969), 71pp., ill. [text by Augustus John, Laurie Lee, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, Walter Starkie, Marguerite Steen].
Travel works & autobiography
  • Don Gypsy: Adventures with a Fiddle in Barbary, Andalusia and La Mancha, with frontispiece and title page design by Arthur Rackham ( London : John Murray, 1936, 1938), xvi, 525 p. : ill., fold. map., ports., music; 22cm.
  • In Sara's Tents [An account of wanderings among the gipsies with illustrations by José Porta and plates] (London: John Murray 1953), ix, 339pp., ill. [24pp. of pls., front.], 23 cm., and Do., trans. in German as Auf Zigeunerspuren: von Magie und Musik, Spiel und Kult der Zigeuner in Geschichte und Gegenwart Walter Starkie; mit einem Beitrag von Walter Dostal, 1 (München: C. Hanser 1957), 318pp.
  • Raggle-taggle: Adventures with a Fiddle in Hungary and Roumania (London: John Murray 1933, 1935, 1941, 1944, 1947, 1949), 242pp.; Do. [Readers Union edn.] (1964); Do. [trans. into Spanish as] Trotamundos y gitanos: Aventuras de un juglar en Hungria y Rumania, trans. by Maria Alfaro; prologue [prólogo] by Julio Gomez de la Serna (Madrid: M. Aguilar [1944]), xxiv, 302pp., ill. ; Do., [trans. into Swedish as] Zigenarfiolen: vagabondliv pä Ungerns och Rumäniens landsvägar, trans. by Anders Eje (Helsingfors: Holger Schildts Förlag, 1933), 268pp.
  • Spanish Raggle-taggle: Adventures with a Fiddle in North Spain (London: John Murray 1934. 1936), xv, 488pp., ill. [front. & title-page designed by Arthur Rackham]; Do. (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1961), 318pp., Do. [large print edn.] (Bath: Chivers 1973), xv, 488pp.; and Do. [trans. as] Aventuras de un irlandés en Espan~a, trans. by Antonio Espina (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1937), 242pp., and Do. with a prologue by Ian Gibson (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 2006), 261pp.
  • trans. & intro., Tiger Juan, by RamoŽn PeŽrez de Ayala (London: Jonathan Cape [1933]), 320pp. [Pt. 1: trans. of Tiger Juan; Pt. 2: trans. fo El curandero de su honra].
  • Raggle-taggle Gypsy Tales: adventures with gypsy tunes told by Walter Starkie, directed by Arthur Luce Klein, 1959).
  • “I am a Romany Rye”, in Readers News, 12, 3 [Letchworth: Temple Press] (August 1949).
  • Reflejos en Inglaterra de la Personalidad del Rey CatoŽlico [from] Estudios del V Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragon, Vol. II (Zaragoza 1956), pp.197-220.
  • Scholars and Gypsies: An Autobiography (London: John Murray 1963), xi, 324pp.
  • The Waveless Plain: An Italian Autobiography (John Murray 1938, 1940).
Translations & Editions
  • intro. to Lavengro, by George Henry Borrow [reiss. of 1906 Edn.] (London: J. M. Dent & Sons; NY: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1948, 1961), xxiv, 550pp.
  • trans., Tower of Ivory, by Rodolfo L. Fonseca (London: Jonathan Cape 1954), 504pp.
  • The Romany Rye, by George Borrow (London: Cresset Press 1948), xxxii, 414pp. [sequel to Lavengro]
  • The Deceitful Marriage and Other Exemplary Novels, a new translation with a foreword by Walter Starkie, (NY: New American Library 1963), 320pp. intro
  • trans. & ed., with a biographical prelude, Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miguel Cervantes Saavedra - an abridged version designed to relate without digressions the principal adventures of the Knight and his Squire; (London: Macmillan, NY: St. Martin's Press 1954, 1957), 116, 593pp., ill. [decorations from the drawings by Gustave Doré].
  • intro. to The Bible in Spain, by George Borrow (London: Dent 1961), xvi, 510pp.
  • afterword to Deirdre, by James Stephens (NY: New American Library, 1962), 155pp.
  • intro., Our Lord Don Quixote: the Life of Don Quixote and Sancho with Related Essays, by Miguel de Unamuno, translated by Anthony Kerrigan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1967), 553pp.
  • Trans. ed., & intro., Eight Spanish plays of the Golden Age (NY: Modern Library 1964), ii, 328pp, [J. Ruiz, The gallant, the bawd, and the fair lady; L. de Rueda, The mask; L. de Vega, Peribán~ez and the Comendador of Ocan~a; Cervantes, Pedro, the artful dodger; Cervantes, The jealous old man; Tirso de Molina, The playboy of Seville; Calderón, The mayor of Zalamea; The mystery play of Elche].
Miscellaneous
  • Conferencia conmemorativa Eugene O'Neill, 1888-1953 (Madrid 1954), 37pp.
  • Don Gitano: aventuras de un irlandeŽs con su violiŽn: en Marruecos, AndaluciŽa y en La Mancha [Por] Walter Starkie; TraduccioŽn de Antonio Espina, 1944 [1st edn.].
  • Ensayos Hispano-Ingleses: Homenaje a Walter Starkie (Barcelona: Jose Janes 1948).
  • La Espan~a de Cisneros Walter Starkie; versioŽn castellana de la inglesa por Alberto De Mestas (Barcelona: Juventud 1943, 1955), 488p.
  • Essays by divers hands: being the transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, ed. L. P. Hartley (1966).
  • Grand inquisitor: being an account of Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros and his times (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1940), 492pp.
  • Foreword to Gypsy Folk Tales (Hatboro: Folklore Associates; London: Herbert Jenkins 1963), xi, lxxxiii, 302pp. [8°; reduced photographic reprint of the 1899 edn. by Francis Hindes Groome].
  • with A. Norman Jeffares, Homage to Yeats, 1865-1965: papers read at a Clark Library seminar, 16 Oct. 1965, intro. by Majl Ewing (LA: California UP 1966), vi, 78pp.
  • Letters to Derek Hudson, 8 April-10 May 1961, 1958.
  • Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936 (London: John Murray 1926), 292pp.; Do. [another edn.] (London: J. M. Dent; NY: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1929), viii p., 11-276pp.; 20cm.; Do. [2nd edn., rev. & enl.] (1937), and Do. [3rd. edn.] (Berkeley: California UP 1965, 1967),xii, 304pp.
  • trans., This is Spain [Pour voir et pour comprendre l’Espagne], by Ignacio Olagué, (London: Cohen & West 1954), 167pp., ill. [plates and map].
  • The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James (London: John Murray 1957), x, 339pp., ill. [map, music], and Do., trans by Amando Lazaro Ros as El camino de Santiago: las peregrinaciones al Sepulcro del Apostol (1958).
  • ‘Gypsies: the Eternal Travellers’, intro. to Romany Remedies and Recipes, by Gipsy Petulengro [orig. Methuen 1947] (Hollywood, Calif: Newcastle Publishing Co. 1972).
  • [with others,] Saints and Ourselves: personal studies [3rd series; [rep. from The Month, ed. by Philip Caraman] (London: Catholic Book Club 1958).
  • ‘Semblanza de Cervantes y Shakespeare’ [in] Conferencia pronunciada en el Teatro CalderoŽn, de Barcelona, la noche del 23 de enero de 1946, con motivo de la extraordinaria representacioŽn de Hamlet en homenaje a la literatura inglesa [with] El Problema Espiritual de Hamlet artiŽculo literario de Derek A. Traversi (Barcelona 1947), 32pp.
  • trans., with pref. essay, The Spaniards in Their History, by Ramón Menéndez Pidal [pref. from Historia de Espan~a] (London: Hollis & Carter 1950), viii, 251pp., and Do. [another edn.] (Geneva: EDISLI 1950, 1966) [trans. from intro. to first vol. of Historia de Espan~a (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe 1947)].

See also ‘The Shanachie Casts a Spell’, in Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections, ed. E. H. Mikhail (London: Macmillan 1988), pp.108-112.
Discography
  • Spain: A Musician's Journey through Time and Space [Espagne, Voyage musicale à travers le temps et l'espace 3 vols. (1958) [Vol. 1: The musical journey through time; Vol. 2: Spain from coast to coast; Vol. 3: 6 gramophone records]
The foregoing listed in COPAC; accessed online 03.06.2010.

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Criticism
See Irish Book Lover 24, 26.

 

References
Bernard Share, ed., Far Green Fields, 1500 Years of Irish Travel Writing (Belfast: Blackstaff 1992), gives extract from Raggle Taggle (John Murray 1933). BIBL, Starkie, ‘The Playboy Riots’, Irish Times (9 Oct. 1963), p.8.

Belfast Public Library holds Don Gyspy (1936); Raggle Taggle (1935); Spanish Raggle-Taggle (1934); The Waveless Plain (1940).

 

Notes
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1984), records that W. J. M. Starkie’s eds. of Aristophanes’ Acharnians, Wasp, and Clouds, were standard works, though Shakespeareanised. (p.168.)

Anthony Cronin, Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist (1996), writes: ‘Gerald Brenan told the present writer that he knew nothing about the Spanish people or their atttiudes - “or the gypsies either”; he added, but however that may be, Spanish Raggle-Taggle was followed by Gypsy Folk Lore and Music, and meantime Starkie had become, in 1927, a director of the Abbey Theatre. (p.62.)

Dervla Murphy attests that it was the writing of Walter Starkie which first ignited in her the desire to visit the land ‘whose very name seemed a one-word poem’ (See Transylvania and Beyond, 1992.)

Irish Press (24 Feb. 1934), states that a new director has been appointed to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin: ‘Dr Walter Starkie, their former representative, was co-opted as an ordinary director following the death of Lady Gregory’. (National Archives of Ireland; Record 14895 from Department of the Taoiseach.)

Professor Thrift: Nicholas Allen writs that William Thrift, Professor of Physics and Dail Senator for TCD and some time member of the Committee on Evil Literature, was a friend of Trinity Fellow Walter Starkie’s father. (See Allen, ‘Free Statement: Censorship and the Irish Statesman’, in Last Before America: Irish and American Writing, ed. Fran Brearton & Eamonn Hughes, Belfast: Blackstaff Press 2001, p.97.

Kith & Kin, Walter Starkie, ed. St. Gerard‘s Prep. Schol, Bray, 1932-36; lived in California.

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