Abstract
The article begins by assessing Enid Blyton’s contribution to the Arthurian revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, setting this in the context of longstanding debates about the function of children’s literature. It goes on to argue that Blyton’s use of the story of Enid in The Knights of the Round Table (1930) has a personal significance which deserves attention. The article also suggests that other figures in the story—Enid’s father, her mother, and her husband Geraint—have parallels in Blyton’s life. In Alfred Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” the tale of Geraint and Enid concerns the early phase of married life—a phase which must meet certain criteria if children are to be forthcoming. But Blyton’s source might have prompted unease on her part, for it was in 1928—the year in which The Knights of the Round Table was serialized—that Blyton, who had not conceived after 4 years of marriage, consulted a gynaecologist.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ascham, Roger. (1909/1568). The Schoolmaster. London: Cassell.
Blyton, Enid. (1928a, August 29). Notes for the Teacher. The Teachers World, p. 1076.
Blyton, Enid. (1928b, October 3). Letter. The Teachers World, p. 41.
Blyton, Enid. (1950/1930). The Knights of the Round Table. London: Latimer House.
Blyton, Enid. (1984/1950). In the Fifth at Malory Towers. London: Dragon.
Blyton, Enid. (1986/1952). The Story of My Life. London: Grafton.
Davies, Serena. (2009, November 13). Interview with Helena Bonham-Carter. The Daily Telegraph. Accessed April 8, 2013, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk.
De Troyes, Chrétien. (2004). Arthurian Romances. Trans. W.W. Kibler and Carleton W. Carroll. London: Penguin.
Dixon, Bob. (1974). The Nice, the Naughty and the Nasty: The Tiny World of Enid Blyton. Children’s Literature in Education, 15, 43–61.
Dixon, Bob. (1977a). Catching Them Young I: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction. London: Pluto.
Dixon, Bob. (1977b). Catching Them Young II: Political Ideas in Children’s Fiction. London: Pluto.
Eales, Derek. (1989). Enid Blyton, Judy Blume, and Cultural Impossibilities. Children’s Literature in Education, 20(2), 81–90.
Eliot, T. S. (1932). In Memoriam. In Selected Essays (pp. 328–338). London: Faber.
Eliot, T. S. (1934, February 23). Le Morte d’Arthur. Spectator, p. 278.
Eliot, T. S. (1942, February 12). The Voice of His Time: T. S. Eliot on Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.” The Listener, pp. 211–212.
Hildick, Wallace. (1974). Children in Fiction: A Critical Study in Depth of the Artistic and Psychological Factors Involved in Writing Fiction for and About Children. London: Evans Brothers.
Hollindale, Peter. (1992). Ideology and the Children’s Book. In Peter Hunt (Ed.), Introduction to Literature for Children: Contemporary Criticism (pp. 19–40). London: Routledge.
Hunt, Peter. (1994). An Introduction to Children’s Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hunt, Peter. (1997). Enid Blyton as Great Literature. In Nicholas Tucker and Kimberley Reynolds (Eds.), Enid Blyton: A Celebration and Reappraisal (pp. 30–35). London: Roehampton Institute.
Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.). (1996). The New Arthurian Encyclopaedia. New York: Garland.
Lacy, Norris J. (2009). The Arthur of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. In Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (pp. 120–135). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Mabinogion. (2008). Ed and trans. Sioned Davies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Malory, Thomas. (1978). Le Morte d’Arthur (Everyman edition, 2 Vols.). London: Dent.
Merriman, James D. (1973). The Flower of Kings: A Study of the Arthurian Legend in England between 1485 and 1835. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Middleton, Roger. (2004). Enide’s See-Through Dress. In Bonnie Wheeler (Ed.), Arthurian Studies in Honor of P. J. C. Field (pp. 143–163). Cambridge: Brewer.
Parins Jackson, Marylyn (Ed.). (1988). Malory: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge.
Poulson, Christine. (1992). “The True and the False”: Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and the Visual Arts. In Debra N. Mancoff (Ed.), The Arthurian Revival: Essays on Form, Tradition, and Transformation (pp. 97–114). New York: Garland.
Rudd, David. (1995). Five Have a Gender-ful Time: Blyton, Sexism, and the Infamous Five. Children’s Literature in Education, 26(3), 185–196.
Rudd, David. (2000). Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children’s Literature. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Smallwood, Imogen. (1989). A Childhood at Green Hedges. London: Methuen.
Stoney, Barbara. (1974). Enid Blyton: A Biography. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Taylor, Beverly and Brewer, Elisabeth. (1983). The Return of King Arthur: British and American Arthurian Literature since 1900. Cambridge: Brewer.
Tennyson, Alfred. (1969). The Poems of Tennyson (Ed. Christopher Ricks). London: Longmans.
Tucker, Nicholas. (1975). The Blyton Enigma. Children’s Literature in Education, 19, 191–197.
Tucker, Nicholas. (1981). The Child and the Book: A Psychological and Literary Exploration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, T.H. (1958). The Once and Future King. London: Collins.
Zipes, Jack. (2002). Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
T. J. Lustig is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Keele University and the author of Knight Prisoner: Thomas Malory Then and Now (2013).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lustig, T.J. Enid on Enid: Blyton’s Use of Arthurian Narratives in The Knights of the Round Table . Child Lit Educ 45, 89–100 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-013-9203-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-013-9203-x