MIDDLE-EARTH TIMELINE
Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World is the first book by Verlyn Flieger, professor of English at the University of Maryland and one of the leading Tolkien scholars. It was published by Eerdmans in 1983.
Flieger reads The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings in the light of the ideas of Owen Barfield, a friend of Tolkien and fellow Inkling, about how the original unity of meaning in language splinters over time. She shows how light and language break apart together in Tolkien's mythology. Kent State University Press published a much expanded revised edition in 2002.
Verlyn Flieger reads Tolkien's mythology through Owen Barfield's ideas on language, where light and meaning splinter together.