Verlyn Flieger
British writer
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.
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; A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie, which won the 1998 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings studies; and Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology (2005).
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; In 2013, she won the Mythopoeic Award again for Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien, and in 2019, for a fourth time, for There Would Always Be a Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien.
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 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.
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