Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology
by Verlyn Flieger
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An eagerly awaited exploration of Tolkien's Silmarillion The content of Tolkien's mythology, the Silmarillion, has been the subject of considerable exploration and analysis for many years, but the logistics of its development have been mostly ignored and deserve closer investigation. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars understood the term mythology as a gathering of song and story that derived from and described an identifiable world. Tolkien made a continuous effort over several show more years to construct a comprehensive mythology, to include not only the stories themselves but also the storytellers, scribes, and bards who were the offspring of his thought. In Interrupted Music Flieger attempts to illuminate the structure of Tolkien's work, allowing the reader to appreciate its broad, overarching design and its careful, painstaking construction. She endeavors to "follow the music from its beginning as an idea in Tolkien's mind through to his final but never-implemented mechanism for realizing that idea, for bringing the voices of his story to the reading public." In addition, Flieger reviews attempts at mythmaking in the history of English literature by Spenser, Milton, and Blake as well as by Joyce and Yeats. She reflects on the important differences between Tolkien and his predecessors and even more between Tolkien and his contemporaries. This in-depth study will fascinate those interested in Tolkien and fantasy literature. show lessTags
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31+ Works 1,620 Members
Verlyn Flieger's books on Tolkien include Splintered Light, A Question of Time, Interrupted Music, and Green Suns and Farie (all published by The Kent State University Press). With Carl Hostetter she edited Tolkien's Legendarium and with Douglas A. Anderson edited Tolkien's essay On Fairy-stories. With David Bratman and Michael D. C. Drout she show more edits the yearly journal Tolkien Studies. She has published two fantasy novels, Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies' Caww; an Arthurian novella, "Avilion" in The Doom of Camelot; and two short stories, "Green Hill Country," in Seekers of Dreams, and "Igraine at Tintagel," in Amazing Graces. show less
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2005
- People/Characters
- Beowulf; Eriol; C. S. Lewis; Elias Lönnrot; Alwin Arundel Lowdham; Christopher Tolkien (show all 7); J. R. R. Tolkien
- Important places
- Faërie; Númenor
- Epigraph
- If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it
If any strain of my "broken music" make a child's eyes flash, or his mother's grow for a moment dim, my labour will not have been in vain.
&n... (show all)bsp; -- George MacDonald - First words
- Introduction
The creation story of J. R. R. TOlkien's mythology, the Silmarillio, is the Ainulindalë or "Singing of the Ainur."
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- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
