Tolkien and the classical world

Add links
This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article is about uses of classical themes in Tolkien's fiction. For the book on this theme, see Tolkien and the Classical World (book).
Roman legend, Aeneas escapes the ruin of Troy, while in Tolkien's legendarium, Elendil escapes Númenor.[1]
Painting Aeneas Flees Burning Troy by Federico Barocci
, 1598

magical rings with parallels to the One Ring; and the echoes of the tale of Lúthien and Beren with the myth of Orpheus
descending to the underworld. Other possible connections have been suggested by scholars.

Tolkien stated that he wanted to create

Ithilien
, which are clearly Mediterranean but not specifically classical.

Tolkien's fiction was brought to a new audience by Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings. This in turn influenced the portrayal of the classical world in several later films, such as the 2004 Troy.

Context

Main article: J. R. R. Tolkien

Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of works such as Beowulf shaped his fictional world of Middle-earth, including his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings.[2][3] This did not prevent him from making use of classical sources as well.[4]
The classical world has been defined as "the history, literature, myths, philosophy, and society of ancient Greece and Rome".[5] It has been argued that since Tolkien's
mythology for England was largely medieval, he needed a classical setting to provide a suitable impression of historical depth.[6]

Classical themes

Decline and fall

Main article: Decline and fall in Middle-earth

The classical scholar Giuseppe Pezzini writes that "narratives of decline" are common in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. This is seen in the writings of both Hesiod and Ovid. Pezzini sees the decline of Tolkien's world of Arda from its First Age "filled with Joy and Light" down to its "Twilight" Third Age as echoing the classical theme of decline from the Golden Age.[7] Ross Clare analyses how Tolkien's chronicles of the decline and fall of his island paradise of Númenor might have been influenced by classical frameworks of decline and fall, as provided by the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Suetonius. Clare sees Athenian decline as entailing a three-stage process, like that of Númenor.[8] Hamish Williams regards the narrative of decline and fall in Númenor as a thought-experiment exercise recalling Plato's philosophical arguments, where certain virtues and ideals (sophocracy, moderation, piety, etc.) are emphasized through their loss.[9]

Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both

Men, to industrialise and to pollute, however much Tolkien regretted the fact.[7][12][13]

  • Decline and fall: the shattered ruins of the Roman city at Baalbek
    Decline and fall: the shattered ruins of the Roman city at Baalbek

Divine intervention

Further information: Luck and fate in Middle-earth

Pezzini further states that the pattern of divine intervention in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings echoes that in

Valar to "the gods of 'traditional' 'higher' mythology" – meaning, as Richard Purtill explained, the Roman or Greek pantheons, or to an extent also the Æsir of Norse mythology – though with definite differences. In particular, in his early work The Cottage of Lost Play he equated the classical gods to the Valar. Pezzini writes that in The Silmarillion,[14]

the Valar are, in fact, full-fledged epic gods: they speak, they suffer, they desire, they fight, and, above all, they deliberate on the fates of elves and humans (in councils [like those] in Homer and Virgil) and interact with them in order to bring about their providential plans (individual or collective).[14]

  • Like the pantheon of Greek gods, Tolkien's Valar behave as a group, and act in Middle-earth through what appears as luck, or fate.
    Like the
    Valar behave as a group, and act in Middle-earth through what appears as luck, or fate
    .

Just as with the interactions of the classical gods with mortals, the Valar's interactions with Middle-earth can take multiple forms: direct appearances or theophanies; through messengers such as the Wizard Gandalf, sent by the Valar; through entities in nature, such as eagles or mists; through dreams; through inspiration; and perhaps also through omens.[14] Pezzini writes that Tolkien's approach, that "the gods' messages can be presented as warnings, and not threats or orders and, above all, that they can be ignored by non-divine characters are both unusual scenarios in classical epic".[14] Further points of difference are that if the Valar choose to intervene, they usually do it overtly, unlike the classical gods; and they do so out of a "desire for fellowship" which is lacking in classical accounts.[14] Pezzini comments, too, that divine inspiration is typically a good thing in Tolkien's writings and a bad thing in classical accounts.[14]

Giuseppe Pezzini's analysis of covert divine intervention in Middle-earth[14]
Type Classical examples from the Aeneid Middle-earth examples from The Silmarillion
Theophany Mercury appears to Aeneas
Turgon and Tuor
Through messengers Jupiter sends orders to Aeneas via Mercury Ulmo sends Tuor to warn Gondolin
Through entities in nature Juno arranges a storm to bring Dido and Aeneas together
Maedhros
Through dreams Mercury appears to Aeneas in a dream, telling him to leave Carthage Ulmo warns Turgon and
Finrod
in dreams
Through inspiration Jupiter inspires Dido to be hospitable to Aeneas Ulmo inspires Tuor to leave his father's land

The Valar intervene, too, in The Lord of the Rings, but always covertly. Pezzini takes the example of the wounding of the

Grishnákh by a fateful arrow in the dark, soon followed by his death.[14]

Giuseppe Pezzini's analysis of a divine intervention in The Lord of the Rings[14]
Component Aeneid The Lord of the Rings
Event Aeneas is wounded by an arrow Grishnákh is wounded by an arrow; he is then killed with a spear
An arrow is sent, ambiguously "unknown what chance or what god" (12.321) "it was aimed with skill, or guided by fate"[T 3]
Implied agent A god The Valar
Purpose The god's own To protect humble mortals, so as to fulfil the design of "the Valar, under
the One
"

Specific parallels

Númenor-Atlantis

Further information: Númenor

Plato's 4th century BC tale of decline in Kritias, from the "decadent magnificence"[7] of Atlantis to the humdrum life of Athens, is "unambiguously and intimately"[7] linked to Tolkien's Númenor, since Tolkien made the comparison himself and actually wrote of "Númenor-Atlantis" in his letters. He had considered using this in a time travel novel.[7][T 4] The destruction of Númenor earned it the Quenya name Atalantë "the Downfallen";[T 5] Tolkien described his invention of this additional allusion to Atlantis as a happy accident when he realized that the Quenya root talat- "to fall" could be incorporated into a name for Númenor.[T 6]

The commentator Charles Delattre states that Tolkien's tale of Númenor is a retelling of the myth of Atlantis, the only drowned island in ancient literature. Multiple details align: it began as a perfect world, geometrically laid out to reflect its balance and harmony; it abounds in valuable minerals; and it has unmatched power, with a strong fleet able to project control far beyond its shores, like ancient Athens. Númenor's pride, too, writes Delattre, matches the hubris of Plato's Atlantis; and its downfall recalls the destruction of Atlantis.[15]

  • Map of Arda in the Second Age, showing Númenor in the Great Sea, Belegaer, between Aman and Middle-earth.
    Map of Arda in the Second Age, showing
    Aman
    and Middle-earth.
  • Tolkien wrote of Númenor as Atlantis.[T 4] Athanasius Kircher's 1669 map (here, inverted to place North at the top) places Atlantis between America and Europe (Hispania, Spain).
    Tolkien wrote of Númenor as Atlantis.[T 4] Athanasius Kircher's 1669 map (here, inverted to place North at the top) places Atlantis between America and Europe (Hispania, Spain).

Michael Kleu writes that Tolkien made "playful use of Greek myths related to Atlas", possibly including pre-Platonic tradition. Kleu comments that the playfulness extends, in The Notion Club Papers,[16][T 7] to making Plato's 2,000 year old version derive from the "real" Downfall of Númenor, which in Tolkien's chronology took place some 7,000 years before Plato.[16]

Michael Kleu's analysis of parallels between Plato's Atlantis and Númenor[16]
Component Atlantis Númenor
Location In the ocean to the west of Europe In the ocean to the west of Middle-earth
Resources "extraordinar[il]y fruitful and rich in resources and wildlife"
Geometry A mountain at the island's centre, with a temple at its top
Temple A giant temple to Poseidon, covered in silver A giant temple to
Melkor
, roofed in silver
First King
Oceanid Asia[17]
)
Maiar
Civilisation Greatest maritime power, conquering lands to the east
Decline Moral decay and arrogance leads to destruction of the island
Destruction Fleet sinks, soldiers swallowed by the earth

Gondolin-Troy

Further information: Gondolin

Tolkien scholars have compared the fall of Gondolin to the sack of Troy, noting that both cities were famed for their walls, and likening Tolkien's tale to Virgil's Aeneid. Both have frame stories, situated long after the events they narrate; both have "gods" (Tolkien's Valar) in the action; and both involve an escape.[18][19][6] David Greenman compares the actions of Tolkien's quest-heroes to those of Aeneas and Odysseus.[19]

David Greenman's analysis of classical "quest-hero" themes[19]
Event Classical quest-hero The Lord of the Rings protagonists
Escape from wreck of a kingdom, creation of a new one Aeneas, escaping the ruin of Troy Tuor in the fall of Gondolin
Return to ravaged home, scour it clean Odysseus on his long-delayed return to Ithaca The four Hobbits in "The Scouring of the Shire"

Greenman compares and contrasts

Maeglin's betrayal of Gondolin, which ultimately led to its downfall and ruin. Conversely, Greenman notes that Idril's advice to enact a contingency plan for a secret escape route out of Gondolin was heeded by her people, unlike the warning of Cassandra; and that Idril had always rejected Maeglin's advances and remained faithful to Tuor, unlike Helen who left her husband King Menelaus of Sparta for Prince Paris of Troy.[19]

Alexander Bruce writes that Tolkien's tale parallels Virgil's account, but varies the story. Thus, Morgoth attacks while Gondolin's guard is lowered during a great feast, whereas the Trojans were celebrating the Greeks' apparent retreat, with the additional note of treachery. The Trojan Horse carried the Greeks into Troy, where they set fire to it, paralleled by the fire-serpents which carried "Balrogs in hundreds" into Gondolin. Tolkien's serpents are matched by the great serpents with "burning eyes, fiery and suffused with blood, their tongues a-flicker out of hissing maws" which kill the high priest Laocoön and his sons. Aeneas and his wife Creusa become separated during their escape; her ghost pleads with him to leave when he searches for her, and he travels to Italy; in contrast, Tuor and Idril escape to Sirion together, eventually sailing from there to Valinor.[18] Marco Cristini adds that both cities are fatally attacked during a feast; their heroes both leave their wives to fight, and both see their kings die.[6] Cristini comments further that "The most evident analogy is perhaps the behaviour of Creusa and Idril, who clasp the knees of their husbands to prevent them from joining again the battle when all hope is lost."[6] Scholars have noted that Tolkien himself drew classical parallels for the assault, writing that "Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth".[18][6]

J. K. Newman likens the scene in which Sam Gamgee reflects on what fiction is, and how he and Frodo are in a tale or will be put into one, to Virgil's account of Aeneas looking at his own tale: "There in order he sees the battles fought at Troy... 'Yes', he said, 'this tale will bring you some yet mysterious salvation'...heaving many a sigh... He even recognised himself in the melee with the Greek champions."[20]

Tolkien appears to have based one scene on another classical source, Euripides' play The Trojan Women. Maeglin tries to throw Idril's son Eärendil from the city wall, just as Hector's son Astyanax is thrown down from Troy's walls. Tolkien changes the outcome: Eärendil resists, and Tuor appears just in time to rescue him by throwing Maeglin from the walls instead.[18][19]

Gondor-Rome

Further information: Gondor

Pippin gazed in growing wonder at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything that he had dreamed of; greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. In every street they passed some great house or court over whose door and arched gates were carved many fair letters of strange and ancient shapes: names Pippin guessed of great men and kindreds that had once dwelt there; and yet now they were silent, and no footsteps rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window.

The Lord of the Rings, book 5, ch. 1 "Minas Tirith"

Arnor in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced lengthy "decadence and decline".[1]

Judy Ann Ford adds in

fall of Rome, but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory."[22] She finds multiple likenesses between the cities.[22]

Judy Ann Ford's comparison of Gondor and Rome[22]
Story element Ancient Rome Gondor
Capital moved under threat From Rome to Ravenna in 402 AD From Osgiliath to Minas Tirith
Layout Walled city, built of stone Seven walls of indomitable stone
Architecture Ravenna's tall Basilica of San Vitale The towering stone Hall of Ecthelion
Southern rivals who use war-elephants
Carthaginians
Haradrim
Devastating disease outbreak Antonine Plague Great Plague
Language becomes a lingua franca Latin
Westron

The One Ring–The Ring of Gyges

Further information: One Ring

Plato's

moral dilemma, enabling people to commit injustices without fearing they would be caught.[23] In contrast, Tolkien's Ring actively exerts an evil force that destroys the morality of the wearer.[T 8]

Scholars including

Catabasis", a psychological journey to the Underworld.[23]

Frederick A. de Armas's comparison of Plato's and Tolkien's rings[23]
Story element Plato's Republic Tolkien's Middle-earth
Ring's power Invisibility Invisibility, and corruption of the wearer
Discovery Gyges finds ring in a deep chasm Bilbo finds ring in a deep cave
First use Gyges ravishes the Queen,
kills the King,
becomes King of Lydia (a bad purpose)		 Bilbo puts ring on by accident,
is surprised Gollum does not see him,
uses it to escape danger (a good purpose)
Moral result Total failure Bilbo emerges strengthened

The Tolkien scholar Eric Katz writes that "Plato argues that such [moral] corruption will occur, but Tolkien shows us this corruption through the thoughts and actions of his characters".

Steward of Gondor, begins virtuous but like Plato's Gyges is corrupted "by the temptation of power"[25] from the Ring, even if he wants to use it for good, but redeems himself by defending the hobbits to his own death; the "strong and virtuous"[25] Galadriel, who sees clearly what she would become if she accepted the ring, and rejects it; the immortal Tom Bombadil, exempt from the Ring's corrupting power and from its gift of invisibility; Sam who in a moment of need faithfully uses the ring, but is not seduced by its vision of "Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age"; and finally Frodo who is gradually corrupted, but is saved by his earlier mercy to Gollum, and Gollum's desperation for the Ring. Katz concludes that Tolkien's answer to Plato's "Why be moral?" is "to be yourself".[25]

Beren and Lúthien–Orpheus

Further information: Lúthien and Beren

Elena Capra writes that Tolkien made use of the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, based on the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice but transposed to England, both for The Hobbit's Elvish kingdom, and for his story in The Silmarillion of Beren and Lúthien. That in turn influenced his "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". In Capra's view, Sir Orfeo's key ingredient was the political connection "between the recovery of the main character's beloved and the return to royal responsibility."[26]

Peter Astrup Sundt draws parallels between Beren and Orpheus, or rather between both Beren and Lúthien and the classical character, as it is Lúthien not Beren who has magical powers, and far from playing a passive Eurydice, she too goes to sing for Mandos, the Vala who watches over the souls of the dead.[27]

Peter Astrup Sundt's parallels between Beren/Lúthien and Orpheus[27]
Action/theme Beren Orpheus Lúthien
Bond with nature Yes Yes Yes
Desperate search for lover Yes (
Lay of Leithian
)		 Yes
Repeated calling of her name Tinuviel! Tinuviel! Eurydicen ... Eurydicen
(Virgil's Georgics)
Katabasis,
descent into underworld		 "Go[es] down" into
Doriath
,
the "perilous, terrible, forbidden" city		 Yes
Magical, musical mother The muse Calliope The
Melian
Powerful song Yes Yes
Magical powers Yes Yes
Pleads for return of lover To Pluto and Proserpine To
Mandos

Ben Eldon Stevens maps out similar parallels, but adds that Tolkien's retelling contrasts sharply with the myth. Where Orpheus nearly manages to retrieve Eurydice from Hades, Lúthien rescues Beren three times – from Sauron's fortress-prison of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, involving singing; from Morgoth's Angband, with the Silmarils; and by getting Mandos to restore both of them to life. Stevens comments that in the original myth, Eurydice meets "a second death", soon followed by the griefstruck Orpheus, whereas Tolkien has Lúthien and Beren enjoy "a second life". Stevens notes that Tolkien evidently agreed that this version, ending with a resurrection, embodied a "religious difference" from the Greek myth, as he had described this in one of his letters as "a kind of Orpheus-legend in reverse, but one of Pity not of Inexorability".[28][T 9]

  • Tolkien used the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, which begins "Orfeo was a king In Inglond an heiȝe lording" for his Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.[26]
    Tolkien used the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, which begins
    "Orfeo was a king
    In Inglond an heiȝe lording"
    for his Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.[26]
  • In the classical myth, Orpheus nearly rescues Eurydice from Hades, only for her to die a second death. In Tolkien's version, Lúthien plays Orpheus rather than Eurydice, three times rescuing Beren, and they enjoy a second life together.
    In the classical myth,
    Beren
    , and they enjoy a second life together.

Other influences

Tolkien related the Haradrim's mûmakil in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to Pyrrhus of Epirus's war elephants in his 3rd century BC invasion of ancient Rome.[29]

Charles Oughton likens Tolkien's

Horatius" which retells Livy's tale, though Oughton suggests that Tolkien did make additional use of Macaulay for some details.[30]

The scholar of English literature

Wandering Rocks near the opening of the underworld, and to Odysseus's passage between the devouring Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis.[31]

Verlyn Flieger has called Fëanor "a Promethean figure ... [an] overreacher whose excess is punished, yet whose accomplishments succeed in bringing ... a spark which can elevate humankind".[32]

Newman compares the myth of Elendil and the defeat of Sauron with Jason's taking of the Golden Fleece. In both, a golden prize is taken; in both, there are evil consequences – Elendil's son Isildur is betrayed and the Ring is lost, leading to the War of the Ring and Frodo's quest; Medea murders Jason's children.[4]

Julian Eilmann argues that the tale of Túrin, often vaguely described as "tragic", fits the pattern of Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as described in his Poetics, and accordingly arouses "strong emotional responses of pity and shock".[33] Aristotle's elements of peripeteia or reverse of circumstances, anagnorisis or moments of critical discovery, and pathos or emotional appeal are all present, confirming that the tale is indeed tragic.[33]

Pelóri, to the Greek paradise of Hyperborea, protected "at the back of the north wind behind a huge mountain range".[34]

Gloria Larini compares the Trolls of The Hobbit to the one-eyed giant Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey.[35][36] Hamish Williams argues that Tolkien's ideas on Trolls shifted from Norse myth to Polyphemus-like monster as he came to see brute strength as the opposite of the civilized use of culture and magic, in the framework of likening The Hobbit's "hospitality journey" to that of the Odyssey.[37]

Ithilien: Mediterranean but not necessarily classical

Further information: Plants in Middle-earth

Philip Burton, examining

Ithilien:[38]

Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness. Many great trees grew there, ... and groves and thickets there were of

lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads ... Great ilexes of huge girth stood dark and solemn in wide glades ... and there were acres populous with the leaves of woodland hyacinths:[T 10]

Burton grants that the mention of dryads (tree-nymphs) is "certainly ... strikingly classical", and cites Richard Jenkyns's identification of the described landscape as Mediterranean: "Ithilien is Italy, as the name implies".[38][39] All the same, Burton comments, many of the plant names, seemingly "a parade of Greek and Latin lexis", actually "point beyond the strictly 'classical'." Thus, the -nth- element in "terebinth" and "hyacinth" has been claimed to precede Greek, coming from Asia Minor. "Lily" has an Egyptian origin, and had arrived in England by the 10th century. Many of the plants are, Burton writes, familiar enough in northern Europe that they may "lose their foreign associations altogether."[38]

According to Philip Burton, Tolkien's Ithilien has Mediterranean and Classical connections.[38][39]

In Burton's view, Tolkien, "an

a mythology for England which would be "redolent of our 'air' ... not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East",[40][T 11] and that in doing this he managed to "borrow classical ideas without borrowing the atmosphere."[40]

The effect of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings on cinematic Greece and Rome

Orlando Bloom as the Elf-archer Legolas in Peter Jackson's 2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The actor appeared again as "an accomplished archer" in the 2004 film Troy, one of several classical world films influenced by Jackson.[41]

Antony Keen, an author on the reception of the classics in film and science fiction, writes that Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 films of The Lord of the Rings have had a powerful influence on the portrayal of the classical era in film. One effect, he argues, has been a focus on heroes of Greek mythology, with a move away from Rome, seen as a historical setting, towards Greece, seen as more mythical. Another effect is the addition of monsters; a third, the imitation of Jackson's battle scenes; and a fourth, the use of Jackson's stars in films of the classical world. Keen sees the 2004 film Troy as an early instance, with Orlando Bloom, who had played the Elf-archer Legolas for Jackson, appearing again as "an accomplished archer", Paris. Further, its battles make use of "wide aerial pans of CGI armies" and "an assault upon a defended wall", like Jackson's portrayal of the Battle of Helm's Deep.[41]

Keen comments that four films set at least partly in Roman Britain all make use of something much like Jackson-style "aerial footage, taken from helicopters, showing parties of characters striding across the landscape".[41] These are the 2004 King Arthur; the 2007 The Last Legion; the 2010 Centurion; and the 2011 The Eagle.[41] The films also use "a certain degree of Celtic-style non-verbal singing", which Keen supposes is imitative of Howard Shore's music for The Lord of the Rings films.[41] He suggests in addition that such films have taken on some of Jackson's tropes, such as that the story should be somewhat mythological or fantastical.[41]

The use of monsters, too, has become available to film directors; Keen mentions the "Immortals" in the 2006 film

cave troll.[41]

See also

References

Primary

  1. ^ Tolkien 1977, "Ainulindalë"
  2. ^ Carpenter 2023, #156 to Robert Murray, 4 November 1954
  3. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 3 "The Uruk-hai"
  4. ^ a b Carpenter 2023, letters 131, 154, 154, 156, 227, 252
  5. Akallabêth
    "
  6. ^ Carpenter 2023, letter 257 to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964
  7. ^ Tolkien 1992, "The Notion Club Papers", p. 249
  8. ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"
  9. ^ Carpenter 2023, #153, September 1954 to Peter Hastings
  10. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 7 "Journey to the Cross-roads"
  11. ^ Carpenter 2023, #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951

Secondary

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0
    .
  2. ^ Carpenter 2023, #131
  3. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 146–149.
  4. ^ a b Newman 2005.
  5. ^ Williams 2021, p. xii.
  6. ^
    doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.200
    .
  7. ^
    doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.213
    .
  8. ^ Ross, Clare. Greek and Roman Historiographies in Tolkien's Númenor. pp. 37–72. in Williams 2021
  9. ^ Williams 2023, pp. 27–39.
  10. ^ Flieger 1983, pp. 60–63.
  11. ^ a b Flieger 1983, pp. 65–87.
  12. JSTOR 26811938
    .
  13. ^ Hannon, Patrice (2004). "The Lord of the Rings as Elegy". Mythlore. 24 (2): 36–42.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pezzini, Giuseppe. The Gods in (Tolkien's) Epic: Classical Patterns of Divine Interaction. pp. 73–103. in Williams 2021
  15. ISSN 0035-1466
    . Il est évident que dans ce cadre, Númenor est une réécriture de l'Atlantide, et la lecture du Timée et du Critias de Platon n'est pas nécessaire pour suggérer cette référence au lecteur de Tolkien
  16. ^ a b c Kleu, Michael. Plato's Atlantis and the Post-Platonic Tradition in Tolkien's Downfall of Númenor. pp. 193–215. in Williams 2021
  17. ^ Apollodorus, 1.2.3.
  18. ^ a b c d e f Bruce, Alexander M. (2012). "The Fall of Gondolin and the Fall of Troy: Tolkien and Book II of the Aeneid". Mythlore. 30 (3–4).
  19. ^ a b c d e Greenman, David (1992). "Aeneidic and Odyssean Patterns of Escape and Release in Tolkien's 'The Fall of Gondolin' and 'The Return of the King'". Mythlore. 18 (2). Article 1.
  20. ^ Newman 2005, p. 232, citing Aeneid 1. 456–458, 463–465, 488–489.
  21. ^ Allan, James D. (1974). "The Decline and Fall of the Osgiliathian Empire". Mythcon Proceedings. 1 (4). Article 1.
  22. ^
    S2CID 170501240
    .
  23. ^
    JSTOR 43308203
    .
  24. ^ Neubauer, Lukasz. Less Consciously at First but More Consciously in the Revision: Plato's Ring as a Putative Source of Inspiration for Tolkien's Ring of Power. pp. 217–246. in Williams 2021
  25. ^
    OCLC 863158193
    .
  26. ^
    doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.209
    .
  27. ^ a b Sundt, Peter Astrup. Orpheus and Eurydice in Tolkien's Orphic Middle-earth. pp. 165–189. in Williams 2021
  28. ^ Stevens, Ben Eldon. Middle-earth as Underworld: From Katabasis to Eucatastrophe. pp. 113–114. in Williams 2021
  29. ^ a b Kennedy, Maev (3 May 2016). "Tolkien annotated map of Middle-earth acquired by Bodleian library". The Guardian.
  30. ^
    doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.214
    .
  31. ISBN 978-0875483030
    . Clearly Charybdis is yet another route to hell.
  32. ^ Flieger 1983, pp. 95–96
  33. ^ a b Eilmann, Julian. Horror and Fury: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin and the Aristotelian Theory of Tragedy. pp. 247–268. in Williams 2021
  34. ^ a b Garth 2020, p. 90.
  35. ^ Larini, Gloria. Giant, Solitary, and Anarchist. The Trolls in The Hobbit and Polyphemus in the Odyssey. pp. 3–12. in Arduini, Canzonieri & Testi 2019
  36. S2CID 258432978
    .
  37. S2CID 258433881
    .
  38. ^ a b c d e f Burton, Philip. 'Eastwards and Southwards': Philological and Historical Perspectives on Tolkien and Classicism. pp. 273–304. in Williams 2021
  39. ^ a b Jenkyns, Richard (1980). The Victorians and Ancient Greece. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 49.
  40. ^ a b Garth 2020, p. 37.
  41. ^
    doi:10.34679/THERSITES.VOL15.223
    .

Sources

Further reading
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tolkien_and_the_classical_world&oldid=1204584119"