Of Middle-Earth and it's relation to our world

[Aragorn_the_Ranger]

We all know that Middle-Earth is a fictional place set in the “world” of Tolkien, though one thing is still uncertain to me. In The Hobbit JRR Tolkien makes this confusing statement at the beginning at the book. He is describing what a Hobbit is and then writes this “….They are (or were) a little people…” Is he stating that Hobbits and the whole of Middle-Earth, are of some connection with our world, or is he implying that they are of another world with no connection to our world at all.
Strange…….don’t you think?
[img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]

[littlemanpoet]

Tolkien purposely made it feel like our history. LotR takes place in the Third Age of the sun, and we are supposedly in the Seventh Age. So keep an eye out for hobbits; you never know when you may spot one, but they really are too quick for us slow humans... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Naaramare]

And if you happen to be walking a deserted beach somewhere, keep an ear out for that poor last son of Feanor, who's wandering about singing in his insanity.

I have not wandered deserted beaches trying to find him. Don't know what you're talking about.

[greyhavener]

Tolkien said he wanted to create a mythology for England. This is a guess, but I think the idea was to present the events of Middle Earth as having taken place in England before the beginning of recorded history...so long ago that even the geography would have changed.

[Merigrin]

I think that middle earth was our earth long ago, he refers to star constellations that we have (sickle* the asterisk tells us the sickle is what the hobbits call the great bear which in turn we call big dipper)
It is also noted that the lands where for instance treebeard wandered are now under the see and that some hobbits do still linger in the northwest.

[Lomelinde]

It is often said (Tolkien may have even said it himself) that Middle-Earth is a piece of Europe (or England) and that Tolkien intended The Hobbit, LOTR, the Sil, etc. to be an alternative prehistory of Earth. He certainly makes it seem plausible enough.

[Tigerlily Gamgee]

I think it's incredible how Tolkien makes it all seem so real.

Have you seen the Discovery Channel "Behind the Movie" special about The Lord of the Rings?
It talks a little about this on that. I think it's fascinating how they show the relations to our own Earth in that. They talk about our own myths (relating to the line "and Legend became Myth") such as Beowulf. They talk about how it was believed to be just a poem but then they made a discovery of an old ship that is very close to the ship described in Beowulf. So, who's to say that that isn't true.
Many old stories and myths of our own world involve great struggles between good and evil and there are even stories filled with magic and wonderful miracles.
It seems like our own history is not too far from what Tolkien wrote in LOTR. Who's to say that our Earth couldn't have been similar to Middle Earth. There is still a lot that we don't know and probably never will.

[Evenstar1]

When Tolkien wrote "The Hobbit," it was child's story that he had originally invented for his own children. It came out of a series of "Father Christmas" letters he'd written to them -- one a year, becoming more and more elaborate as the years passed -- from the time his oldest son was about four years old.

The "Silmarillion" was Tolkien's version of the Genesis story, with many Christian/Catholic undertones and symbolisms. (JRRT had this concept of Christ's life being "true myth." A myth is a story that illustrates a truth, but since Jesus really lived, the story of Jesus's life was a true myth.) Set in a time long before the birth of Christ, the ideas for LOTR came out of the background of the Silmarillion (something he'd never published), but his publisher had asked for a sequel to The Hobbit. Hence the trillogy.

So, in answer to your question, Aragorn, yes, "Middle Earth" and "Earth" are one and the same, and no, they are not. They are the same via the allegories and symbolism rooted in the Silmarillion. And they were also, perhaps, the same (for the author's intent) when he initially penned the children's book. But the need to marry the concepts of the Silmarillion with the storyline of the Hobbit actually brought the races of halflings and dwarves to a much deeper and more profoundly symbolic place than they'd originally been intended to inhabit. So in that sense, Middle Earth and Earth are not actually the same.

Hope that makes sense/helps! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ June 07, 2002: Message edited by: Evenstar1 ]

[Calencoire]

If you study The atlas of Middle Earth, you can easily see the similarities to our world. You would be blind not to .

Maybe we should watch out for Elves too. after the Third Age there were still a few Elves left. I don't know how we would distinguish them, but it would be awesome to find one.