Journal of Tolkien Research Volume 5 | Issue 1 Article 2 2018 Language as Communication vs. Language as Art: J.R.R. Tolkien and early 20th-century radical linguistic experimentation Dimitra Fimi Cardiff etrM opolitan University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Fimi, Dimitra (2018) "Language as Communication vs. Language as Art: J.R.R. Tolkien and early 20th-century radical linguistic experimentation," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 5 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol5/iss1/2 This Peer-Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Library Services at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Tolkien Research by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at
[email protected]. Fimi: TolkienandRadicalLinguisticExperimentation Among much hitherto unpublished material found in the recent critical edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1931 essay ‘A Secret Vice’,1 including previously omitted passages, drafts, and an entirely new essay, the editors have transcribed several loose pages and slips of paper with Tolkien’s scattered notes, often in telegraphic or unfinished sentences. This is where Tolkien mentions two surprising contemporary literary figures: James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Joyce is not mentioned by name, but Tolkien has scribbled the name of one of the characters from what later became Finnegans Wake: Anna Livia Plurabelle (SV, p. 91).2 This is not the only time Tolkien is known to have noted this name: it also appears transcribed in his ‘Qenya Alphabet’ (later known as ‘tengwar’ letters) in a document also dated 1931, now edited and published as a facsimile in Parma Eldalamberon 20 (Tolkien, 2012, pp.