Splintered Light

Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World is an 1983 book of literary criticism by the leading Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, in which she argues that light is a central theme of Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology, in particular in The Silmarillion. It has been admired by other scholars to the extent that it has become a core element of Tolkien scholarship.^[1][2]

Context

Verlyn Flieger worked for over 30 years as a Tolkien scholar, becoming accepted as one of the foremost authors in that field. Splintered Light was her first book, establishing a reputation that increased with her later monographs Interrupted Music and A Question of Time, and two edited collections of essays.^[5]

Book

In A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, the Tolkien scholar Bradford Lee Eden writes that Splintered Light was the first scholarly monograph on The Silmarillion. he describes it as "the most important and influential book on both language and music in Tolkien's works", discussing how music and light are interwoven as "central themes" throughout The Silmarillion, and viewing Tolkien as a "musician of words".^[1]

In the Rocky Mountain Review, the scholar and fantasy author Brian Attebery notes that Flieger shows how Tolkien followed Owen Barfield's views on myth-making, including the idea of a gradual fall from grace over the course of history. In Attebery's view, Flieger successfully links Tolkien's Middle-earth writings to his scholarship, with a "well researched and sympathetic reading of The Silmarillion, a work whose importance she goes far towards demonstrating",^[8] showing that even though it contains numerous short tales written decades apart, it is "a unified whole with a deeply felt meaning".^[8] He writes that she is "less successful in tying his creations to [Tolkien's] biography". He argues that even if the reader accepts her thesis that the paired opposites in his Middle-earth writings – between light and dark, or between redemption and fall – derive from a temperament that oscillated "between hope and despair", that would not explain why those feelings resulted in fantasy "rather than ... metaphysical verse or realistic fiction"; and it wouldn't explain, either, why The Silmarillion is overwhelmingly dark, while The Lord of the Rings is largely optimistic. Attebery suggests that the reasons might be the works' different origins – in his view, Beowulf and Norse legend versus fairy tale.^[8]

The scholar of English Janice Neuleib, reviewing the work in Christianity & Literature, writes that it both illuminates Tolkien's philosophy and analyses his "creative genius",

The scholar of theology and literature Ralph C. Wood, reviewing another of Flieger's books for VII, writes that Splintered Light is "an indispensable work for any serious study of the great fantasist, especially of The Silmarillion".^[10]

Flieger was nominated for the 1986 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Splintered Light.^[11] The scholar of humanities Deidre Dawson comments that the book has become a core element of Tolkien scholarship.^[2]

References