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Verlyn Flieger

{{Short description|American author and editor}}

Verlyn Flieger (born 1933) is an author, editor, and Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she taught courses in comparative mythology, medieval literature, and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. She is well known as a Tolkien scholar, especially for her books Splintered Light, A Question of Time, and Interrupted Music. She has won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award four times for her work on Tolkien's Middle-earth writings.

Biography

Flieger holds a master's degree (1972) and doctorate (1977) from The Catholic University of America, and has been associated with the University of Maryland since 1976. In 2012, retiring from teaching at Maryland, Flieger began teaching Arthurian studies online at Signum University.{{cite web |title=Verlyn Flieger |url=http://www.mythus.com/ |access-date=28 June 2020}}{{cite web |title=Verlyn Flieger |url=https://signumuniversity.org/directory/verlyn-flieger/ |publisher=Signum University |access-date=28 June 2020}}

Her best-known books are Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World (1983; revised edition, 2002), which argues that light is a central theme of Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology;{{cite book |last=Eden |first=Bradford Lee |author-link=Bradford Lee Eden |chapter=Music |year=2013 |editor-last=Lee |editor-first=Stuart D. |editor-link=Stuart D. Lee |title=A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-119-65602-9 |pages=504, 509}}{{cite journal |last1=Dawson |first1=Deidre A. |title=[Review:] A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger |journal=Journal of Tolkien Research |date=January 2020 |volume=11 |issue=1 |id={{Gale|A647455098}}}} A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie, which won the 1998 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings studies;{{cite web |title=Mythopoeic Awards 1998 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-1998.htm |publisher=Mythopoeic Society |access-date=28 June 2020 |date=1998}} and Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology (2005).{{cite journal |last=Bratman |first=David |author-link=David Bratman |year=2008 |title=Review of The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth, by E. A. Whittingham |journal=Mythlore |volume=26 |issue=3/4 |pages=201–203 |jstor=26814594}}

Flieger won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies a second time in 2002 for Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, which she co-edited with Carl Hostetter;{{cite web |title=Mythopoeic Awards 2002 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-2002.htm |publisher=Mythopoeic Society |access-date=28 June 2020 |date=2002}} In 2013, she won the Mythopoeic Award again for Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien,{{cite web |title=Mythopoeic Awards 2013 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-2013.htm |publisher=Mythopoeic Society |access-date=28 June 2020 |date=2013}} and in 2019, for a fourth time, for There Would Always Be a Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien.{{cite web |title=Mythopoeic Awards 2013 |url=http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/awards-2019-remarks.htm |publisher=Mythopoeic Society |access-date=28 June 2020 |date=2019}}

Flieger has written two young adult fantasies, Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies' Caww, a collection of Arthurian stories, Arthurian Voices, and some short stories. With David Bratman and Michael D. C. Drout, she is co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review.

Reception

Bradford Lee Eden describes Splintered Light as "the most important and influential book on both language and music in Tolkien's works", discussing how the two are interwoven as "central themes" throughout The Silmarillion.{{cite book |last=Eden |first=Bradford Lee |author-link=Bradford Lee Eden |chapter=Music |year=2013 |editor-last=Lee |editor-first=Stuart D. |editor-link=Stuart D. Lee |title=A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-119-65602-9 |pages=501–513}}

J. S. Ryan, reviewing Tolkien's Legendarium for VII, called it a "luminous companion" to the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, and "clearly indispensable".{{cite journal |last1=Ryan |first1=J. S. |title=[Review] Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth by Verlyn Flieger, Karl F. Hostetter |date=2001 |journal=VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center |volume=18 |pages=109–111 |jstor=45296793}} Ryan stated that it "pays a much merited tribute" to Christopher Tolkien's six decades or more of work on his father's writings, indeed from his childhood as one of the original audience for The Hobbit. Ryan describes the 14 essays as "carefully argued", noting among other things Bratman's description of the 4 styles Tolkien used in the Legendarium as "Annalistic, Antique, Appendical, and Philosophical".

Gergely Nagy, in Tolkien Studies, writes of Interrupted Music that it "opens ways" for other scholars working on The Silmarillion, and that as a good book should, it raises many research questions. He notes that Flieger takes the "interrupted music" of the Ainulindalë as a metaphor, "although probably accidental", for Tolkien's unfinished legendarium. Nagy finds the book's argument and writing "exemplarily clear and comprehensible".{{cite journal |last=Nagy |first=Gergely |author-link=Gergely Nagy (scholar) |title=Interrupted Music. The Making of Tolkien's Mythology (review) |journal=Tolkien Studies |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=2006 |issn=1547-3163 |doi=10.1353/tks.2006.0025 |pages=173–177}}

Books

= Scholarly =

; written

; edited

= Fiction =

  • 2000 "Avilion" in The Doom of Camelot, ed. James Lowder, {{ISBN|978-1928999096}}
  • 2002 Pig Tale, {{ISBN|978-0-7868-0792-5}}
  • 2005 "Green Hill Country" in Seekers of Dreams, ed. Douglas A. Anderson, {{ISBN|978-1593600488}}
  • 2011 The Inn at Corbies' Caww, Kitsune Books, {{ISBN|978-0982740941}}
  • 2020 Arthurian Voices, The Gabbro Head Press, {{ISBN|978-1732579934}}

References

{{reflist|30em}}

External links

  • [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tolkien_studies/toc/tks1.1.html Tolkien Studies bibliographic information at Muse]

{{J. R. R. Tolkien}}

{{Authority control}}

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Category:1933 births

Category:Living people

Category:Tolkien scholars

Category:American academics of English literature

Category:Catholic University of America alumni

Category:University of Maryland, College Park faculty

Category:American short story writers

Category:Tolkien Society Award winners