The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/index.php)

- The Books (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9)

- - Numenor/Atlantis (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=770)

Numenor/Atlantis

Could Numenor be Atlantis? I've done some studying, and think that it is!

In the Silmarillion it says there are many different names for Numenor, and Atlante is mentioned. I've always thought of it as like the legend and I don't think Tolkein wanted to spell it out, but did use the idea.

Well the Quenya word for 'Downfallen' is 'Atalante'. What do you think? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I think that it is a pretty widely agreed upon statement that Numenor parallels Atlantis. I think Tolkien himself references it in his letters too.
~Scott

In letter 154

Quote:

The particular 'myth' which lies behind this tale, and the mood both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Númenor: a special variety of the Atlantis tradition. That seems to me so fundamental to 'mythical history' – whether it has any kind of basis in real history, pace Saurat and others, is not relevant – that some version of it would have to come in.

Tolkien states that Numenor was his version of Atlantis over and over in his letters::

Quote:

The Men of the Three Houses were rewarded for their valour and faithful alliance, by being allowed to dwell 'western-most of all mortals', in the great 'Atlantis' isle of Númenóre.

Quote:

The three main themes are thus The Delaying Elves that lingered in Middle-earth; Sauron's growth to a new Dark Lord, master and god of Men; and Numenor-Atlantis.

Quote:

This was because they had been allies of the Elves in the First Age, and had for that reason been granted the Atlantis isle of Númenor.

Quote:

When C. S. Lewis and I tossed up, and he was to write on space-travel and I on time-travel, I began an abortive book of time-travel of which the end was to be the presence of my hero in the drowning of Atlantis.

Best three quotes:

Quote:

The particular 'myth' which lies behind this tale, and the mood both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Númenor: a special variety of the Atlantis tradition.

Quote:

The legends of Númenórë are only in the background of The Lord of the Rings, though (of course) they were written first, and are only summarised in Appendix A. They are my own use for my own purposes of the Atlantis legend, but not based on special knowledge, but on a special personal concern with this tradition of the culture-bearing men of the Sea, which so profoundly affected the imagination of peoples of Europe with westward-shores.

Quote:

N. is my personal alteration of the Atlantis myth and/or tradition, and accommodation of it to my general mythology. Of all the mythical or 'archetypal' images this is the one most deeply seated in my imagination, and for many years I had a recurrent Atlantis dream : the stupendous and ineluctable wave advancing from the Sea or over the land, sometimes dark, sometimes green and sunlit.

I've always thought this, I like to make make believe as realistic as possible.

Well, the afore mentioned letter states it as clear as I would like. The lines are left to be drawn out by the readers. Each to his own interpretation.

Yes, Númenor is Atlantis, as the quotes from the letters demonstrate [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] and Avallon (the island where King Arthur was brougth after being injured by Mordred) is Tol Eressëa [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]