Atlantis-haunting[1] or Atlantic complex[2] were ways by which J.R.R. Tolkien referred to his recurring dreams of a towering, inescapable wave rising up out of the sea or sweeping over the landscape.[3]
History
This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands. It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about it. It always ends by surrender, and I awake gasping out of deep water. I used to draw it or write bad poems about it.
Tolkien describes this dream in various letters, always as an ineluctable wave, sometimes rising up from the sea and sometimes passing over trees and fields[2]; sometimes dark and sometimes green and sunlit[4]. After learning that his son, Michael, had similar dreams without Tolkien ever having mentioned it to him, Tolkien wondered if he might have inherited it from his own parents in turn.[2] It was this dream that inspired the story of Númenor, which Tolkien frequently referred to in his letters as the "Atlantis isle". After writing the story of the Downfall of Númenor, Tolkien noted that he ceased having the dream.[2][1]
The story appears in various places throughout Tolkien's writings. In the 1930's, Tolkien began a challenge with C.S. Lewis which resulted to a "time travel" story, The Lost Road;[5] he completed only four chapters, two of which take place in Atlantis, then known as Númenor. The story takes into account "the traditions of the North Sea concerning the coming of corn and culture heroes, ancestors of kingly lines, in boats"[1] and father-son pairs who share the names of Eädwine and Ælfwine through several versions and cognates. Tolkien imported elements from his earlier legendarium into this, notably the villain character of Thû/Sauron, who was responsible for Númenor's Downfall.[6] This story eventually developed into the Akallabêth, in which the island of Númenor is covered by waves and sinks into the sea.[7] In a letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien also wrote that he "bequeathed [the dream] to Faramir" in The Lord of the Rings.[2] In The Return of the King, Faramir tells Éowyn that he often dreams of Númenor, "of the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness unescapable."[8]
In 1945, Tolkien revisited similar concepts and attempted to write the novel The Notion Club Papers; there, a character named Alwin Arundel Lowdham experiences lucid dreams about Atlantis, which he shares with the Notion Club; through these dreams, he discovers much about the story of Númenor, and that he is a "reincarnation" of Elendil.[9]
See also
External links
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 257, (dated 16 July 1964)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 163, (dated 7 June 1955)
- ↑ Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2017), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (Second Edition), entry "Atlantis"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 276, (dated 12 September 1965)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Lost Road and Other Writings, "Part One. The Fall of Númenor and The Lost Road: I. The Early History of the Legend"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Lost Road and Other Writings, "Part One: II. The Fall of Númenor"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Silmarillion, "Akallabêth: The Downfall of Númenor"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Steward and the King", p. 962
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Sauron Defeated, "Part Two: The Notion Club Papers"