LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 03 - The Ring goes South

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I don't think that this is trivially true. It seems to me that Middle-earth is our world in a fictional past.

Aiwendil's observation is asserted by Tolkien himself when he rejects the descriptor 'nordic' in his vetting of Charlotte and Denis Plimer's article based on an interview with him for the Daily Telegraph. It is Letter #294. Tolkien states that Rivendell is at about the same latitude as Oxford and Minas Tirith at that of Florence (P. 376 in my paperback edition).

I also have another recollection that Tolkien actually makes a statement in another letter that Middle earth is our world back in time, but time precludes my finding it.

Here at the Downs we have developed our own readerly conceit of the absolute separation between the Primary World and Tolkien's Sub-created World, but like all conceits, that is just an extended metaphor masking a theory available for discussion, disproving, modification, etc. There is also a joy in exploring the consistencies between those two worlds even if they need not be considered in any one particular reading of Tolkien's works.