Janet Brennan Croft, consultant on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, talks on “Tolkien’s Faërian Drama: Origins and Valedictions” on Thursday, February 14, at the University Honors Forum at the University of New Mexico.

In “On Fairy-stories,” Tolkien introduces the concept of Faërian drama: plays which the elves present to men, where the viewer feels he is “bodily inside its Secondary World” but instead is “in a dream that some other mind is weaving.” Faërian drama is a form of Elvish art one can almost but not quite grasp and understand, something the witness/participant will ponder and work through for the rest of his life. Croft will suggest that Tolkien may have been influenced in his development of the concept by the medieval dream-vision poems he worked with throughout his career. She will examine some examples of Faërian drama in Tolkien’s fiction and poetry, concentrating especially on his final story, Smith of Wootton Major, and the experiences Smith has in Faery.

Croft speaks 7:30 pm Thursday, February 14, in Room 21 (Ground Floor) of the Student Health Center Building on the UNM campus (behind Johnson Gym and the multi-floor parking garage). The lecture is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact UNM Hobbit Society at tolkien@unm.edu, call Dr. Leslie Donovan at 277-4313, or visit the UNM Hobbit Society website at www.unm.edu/~tolkien