Numenorë - Atlantis?

[Afrodal]

I'm pretty sure there has been a topic about this before, but I still make my own.

So, isn't Numenorë's story pretty much alike Atlantis's?

They both were great lands in an ocean, and if I remember right, it's said that Atlantis was destroyed by a god, Zeus. At least in some version of story.

Well, Eru was also some kind of god, and he destroyed Numenorë. And they both, Numenorë and Atlantis, sank into the bottom of the ocean. There is much same in these stories, so could it be that Tolkien got his idea of Numenorë from Atlantis?

Blah, really bad topic of course, because I'm so bad in writing english.

[Eärendil]

Great topic Afrodal smilies/smile.gif
Well, I think we know that Tolkien got his inspiration from a lot of things. And I have actually been thinking about this myself (am really interested about Atlantis btw), and..why not? He could have been.

[Narya]

Yeah, I think so, too. Numenor was named Atalante (the sunken isle) after it sank into the see. Atalante is quenya and he certanly was inspired by Atlantis...
There are also disscusions if middleearth was real and I believe that Tolkien at least constructed ME as it could have been real in the past of the earth; so I think Atlantis 'could' have been Numenor.

[lathspell]

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

From a letter to Milton Waldman - Silmarillion, edition: 1999

greetings, lathspell

[Arwen Imladris]

Cool quote lathspell, I think that setles it. Tolkien got his idea for Numenor. In english we just finished Mythology, a lot of writers make reference to mythology in their writing. Shakspere has all kinds of references to ancient mythology. Gimli was also a name of some god, I think in norse mythology.

BTW Afrodal, your english sounds better then mine, an it is my first language!

[LadyRywenn]

Nice topic! Anyways, I do believe that it is closely related to Atlantis. I also believe that Tolkien got a ton of inspiration from ancient islands of that nature such as: Avalon (Arthurian Legend), Fortunate Fields/ Isles of the Blessed (Greek Mythology) whereas Atlantis was a happy place. Like the mentioned above. ^_^
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Life. It's just a cereal.

[Paul_nice1]

Interesting topic. Tolkien used to actually dream about the drowning of Atlantis for as long as he could remember ...

In a letter to W.H. Auden (Letters no. 163) he wrote..

"....The terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and comming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields. (I bequeathed it to Faramir.) I don't think i have had it since I wrote the 'Downfall of Numenor' as the last of the legends of the first and second age."

From this it seems that he was having a troublesome dream (or maybee it was a resurfacing inherited memory!!!) about Atlantis and from this he wrote the story of Numenor so it was most likely almost entirely based on the Legend of Atlantis.