Dimitra Fimi
Books
Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies
to Hobbits (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, November
2008)
Tolkien, Race and Cultural History explores the evolution of Tolkien's
mythology by examining how it changed as a result of Tolkien's life story and
contemporary cultural and intellectual history. The book considers Tolkien's
creative writing as an ever-developing 'legendarium': an interconnected web
of stories, poems and essays, from his early poems in the 1910s to his latest
writings in the early 1970s. Consequently, the book is not restricted to a discussion
of Tolkien's best-known works only (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and
The Silmarillion) but examines the whole corpus of his legendarium, including
the 12-volume History of Middle-earth series, which has received little attention
from critics. This new approach and scope brings to light neglected aspects
of Tolkien's imaginative vision and addresses key features of Tolkien's creativity:
the centrality of the Elves and the role of linguistic invention in his legendarium,
as well as race and material culture in Middle-earth.
-
Buy this book from Amazon
in hardback
-
Buy this book from Amazon in paperback
-
See under Media for a Radio interview on my book on BBC Radio Wales
-
Report of book launch and release of paperback edition at www.theonering.net
Extracts from reviews:
"Dimitra Fimi's Tolkien, Race and Cultural History traces the
evolution of the legendarium with admirable care... This scholarly yet approachable
book is filled with...surprising fragments."
Jon Barnes, Times Literary Supplement
"Fimi’s study is well worth reading for the specialist as well as
(or even more so) for the general reader. The author brings together (often
for the first time) relevant research from cultural history and lays out her
arguments fair and square... Fimi’s approach...forces us to reconsider
some well-beloved clichés. Thus, it will no longer be possible to talk
naïvely about the linguistic inspiration of Tolkien’s fiction without
adding at least some qualifying remarks... Fimi’s book has given us some
answers but has also opened up some avenues for future research. What more can
we ask for?"
Thomas Honegger, Tolkien Studies
"No one doubts Tolkien's originality, but Fimi's book allows us to glimpse
a kind of creative logic through which his legendarium almost had to happen:
a climate welcoming of fairies and folklore; romantic quests of national mythologies;
a general interest in language and linguistic invention... Fimi's book reads
so well that it's hard to believe that it's an academic tome..."
Henry Gee, Mallorn
This book sets out to examine Tolkien’s writings from a historical perspective,
setting his ideas in the context of various currents of thought in the Victorian
and Edwardian age. The investigation is wide-ranging, and the results illuminating;
for much that seems eccentric and personal in Tolkien’s vision can be
explained by reference to cultural history.... Until now, Tolkien has generally
been studied in isolation, or as the father of modern fantasy-writing, but this
book shows how his work was rooted in the mental world of his contemporaries
and the immediately preceding generation. As Tolkien scholarship becomes more
analytical, Fimi’s study provides essential new insights.
Jacqueline Simpson, Folklore
What Fimi does in this book is approach Tolkien’s oeuvre with a partly
different set of keys from those commonly used in Tolkien studies, some of which
Tolkien himself did his best to hide in his own comments on his work. The result
is a rich study into Tolkien’s creative impulses and the influences that
worked on those impulses in the course of a long creative life... [A]ny reader
interested in the work of J. R. R. Tolkien... is in for a treat. The book is
intelligently argued and full of interesting ideas and approaches, offering
fresh insights into Tolkien’s authorship.
Nils-Lennart Johannesson, English Today
Fimi’s book is one of the most interesting and original analyses of Tolkien’s
subcreation that has been published for a long time. It is also, lest anyone
be put off by any implications of an over-academic tone in the foregoing, very
clearly written. It should form part of the reading of any serious student of
Tolkien.
Charles Noad, www.lotrplaza.com
This book is a fantastic and original work on Tolkien and I highly recommend
it to all serious Tolkien fans and lovers.
www.tolkienlibrary.com
Research Articles
(2006) "'Come Sing ye Light Fairy Things Tripping so Gay': Victorian Fairies
and the Early Work of J.R.R. Tolkien", Working with English: Medieval and
Modern Language, Literature and Drama, 2, pp. 10-26
(2006) "'Mad Elves' and 'Elusive Beauty': Some Celtic Strands of Tolkien's Mythology",
Folklore, 117:2, pp. 156-170
(2007)"Tolkien's '"Celtic" type of legends': Merging Traditions", Tolkien Studies, 4, pp. 51-71
(2007) "Tolkien and Old Norse Antiquity: Real and Romantic Links in Material
Culture", in Clark, David and Phelpstead, Carl (eds), Old Norse Made New:
Essays on the Post-Medieval Reception of Old Norse Literature and Culture
(London: Viking Society for Northern Research)
Encyclopaedia Entries
(2006) "Victorian Fairyology" (pp.186-7) and "Greece: Reception of Tolkien"
(pp. 257-8), in Drout, Michael (ed.), The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia:
Scholarship and Critical Assessment (New York: Routledge)
(2008) "Unfinished Tales", under Works by J.R.R. Tolkien, in Clark, Robert (ed.),
The Literary Encyclopedia at (www.litencyc.com)
(2008) "Peter and Wendy","The Little White Bird" and"Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens", under Works by J. M. Barrie, in Clark, Robert (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia (www.litencyc.com)
- Read entry on The Little White Bird (login required)
- Read entry on Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (login required)
- Read entry on Peter and Wendy (login required)
(2008) "Ursula Le Guin", biographical profile, in Clark, Robert (ed.), The Literary Encyclopedia (www.litencyc.com)
Book Reviews
(2006) Marjorie Burns, Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth
(Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2005), for Tolkien
Studies, 3, pp. 187-190
(2007) Camilla Asplund Ingemark, The Genre of Trolls: The Case of a Finland-Swedish Folk Belief Tradition (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2004), for Folklore, 118:3, pp. 366-7
(2007) Jacqueline Simpson, Icelandic Folktales and Legends (Stroud,
Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2004), for Folklore, 118:3, pp. 366-7
(2008) Ross Smith, Inside Language: Linguistic and Aesthetic Theory in Tolkien (Zürich, Bern: Walking Tree Publishers, 2007), for Tolkien Studies, 5, pp. 229-33
(2008) Douglas 'Dag' Rossman, The Northern Path: Norse Myths and Legends
Retold...And What They Reveal (Chapel Hill, NC: Seven Paws Press, 2005),
for Folklore, 119:2, pp. 238-9
(2008) Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health,
Gender and Identity (Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press,
2007), for Folklore, 119:3, pp. 349-51
(2008) Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans, Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2006), for Folklore, 119:3, pp. 351-2
(2008) Dirk Meier, Seafarers, Merchants and Pirates in the Middle Ages
(Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2006), for Folklore
(forthcoming)
-
Read this review (link will be added as soon as it is published)
(2009) Thomas Green, Concepts of Arthur (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus,
2007), for Speculum (forthcoming)
- Read this review (link will be added as soon as it is published)
Popular Academic Articles
(2007) "A Note on Túrin and Oedipus", Silver Leaves, 1, pp. 9-10
(2008) "Teaching and Studying Tolkien", Mallorn, 46 (Autumn 2008), pp. 27-9
(2009) "Hobbit Songs and Rhymes: The Folklore of Middle-earth", lotrplaza.com, Scholars Forum