The shape of middle Earth

[StrawberryIcecream]

Does anyone know if Tolkien specified what shape Middle Earth was?

I know its Earth and so therefore would lead you to thinkit is sphere shaped but this a place filled with hobbits and intelligent rings. I always imagined it being flat. I dont know why, i just did.

Anyone know for certain? Or what did you imagine it as?

[Earniel]

I always thought it was flat in the beginning. But I think it was made round after the fall of Numenor. I seem to remember I'ce read somewhere that after the fall of Numenor men could sail of west and not finding Valinor they kept on sailing until they got home again by a detour. Or something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Khamûl]

I've always pictured is as being round just like our Earth. I don't guess I think of a flat Earth rotating so the sun can come up and go down. And Eärniel, I haven't read about where Middle Earth was flat before the fall of Numenor. Then again, I haven't read about the fall of Numenor either.

[Comic Book Guy]

Middle-Earth is not the entire planet, it's a continent on Arda, which is the 'earth'.

Middle-Earth is Europe thousands of years ago, making the events in the Lord of the Rings a 'history'.

This is also in the wrong forum.

[Elfhelm]

Check out Nordic Cosmology. JRRT was into Beowulf and the Eddas. Middle Earth is the English translation of Midgard.

[azalea]

I think Earniel is right. I read somewhere that Arda was originally flat and then became round.

[Elfmaster XK]

Originally posted by Elfhelm
Check out Nordic Cosmology. JRRT was into Beowulf and the Eddas. Middle Earth is the English translation of Midgard.

I love Norse Mythology!! It rocks!

[Sister Golden Hair]

The world (Arda) was flat until the "Downfall of Numenor" when it was changed.

From the Silmarillion:

"Thus in after days, what by the voyage of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallone if they would. Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a straight road must still be for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell, and watch the unfolding of the story of the world."

[Michael Martinez]

From Letter #151:

Middle-earth is just archaic English for [irreproducible letters deleted], the inhabited world of men. It lay then as it does. In fact just as it does, round and inescapable. That is partly the point. The new situation, established at the beginning of the Third Age, leads on eventually ane inevitably to ordinary History, and we here see the process culminating.

From Letter #154:

Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendariium' contains a transition from a flat world (or at least an [unprintable characters deleted] with borders all about it) to a globe: an inevitable transition, I suppose, to a modern 'mythmaker' with a mind subjected to the same 'appearances' as ancient men, and partly fed on their myths, but taught that the Earth was round from the earliest years. So deep was the impression made by 'astronomy' on me that I do not think I could deal with or imaginatively conceive a flat world, though a world of static Earth with a Sun going round it seems easier (to fancy if not to reason).

The particular 'myth' which lies behind this tale, and the mood both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Numenor: a special variety of the Atlantis tradition. That seems to me so fundamental to 'mythical history' -- whether it has any kind of basis in real history, PACE Saurat and others, is not relevant -- that some version of it would have to come in.

I have written an account of the Downfall, which you might be interested to see. But the immediate point is that before the Downfall there lay beyond the sea and the west-shores of Middle-earth an EARTHLY Elvish paradise Eressea, and VALINOR the land of the VALAR (the Powers, the Lords of the West), places that could be reached physically by ordinary sailing-ships, though the Seas were perilous. But after the rebellion of the Numenoreans, the Kings of Men, who dwelt in a land most westerly of all mortal lands, and eventually in the height of their pride attempted to occupy Eressea and Valinor by force, Numenor was destroyed, and Eressea and Valinor removed from the physically attainable Earth: the way west was open, but led nowhere but back again -- for mortals.

From Letter #165:

'Middle-earth', by the way, is not a name of a never-never land without relation to the world we live in (like the Mercury of Eddison). It is just a use of Middle English MIDDEL-ERDE (or ERTHE), altered from Old English MIDDENGEARD: the name for the inhabited lands of Men 'between the seas'. And though I have not attempted to relate the shape of the mountains and land-masses to what geologists may say or surmise about the nearer past, imaginitively this 'history' is supposed to take place in a period of the actual Old World of this planet.

From Letter 169:

...As for the shape of the world of the Third Age, I am afraid that was devised 'dramatically' rather than geologically, or paleontologically. I do sometimes wish that I had made some sort of agreement between the imaginations or theories of the geologists and my map a little more possible.

From Letter #184:

I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of MIDDENGEARD > MIDDEL-ERD, an ancient name for the OIKOUMENE, the abiding place of Men, the objectively real world, in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.

From Letter #211:

[quote]May I say all this is 'mythical', and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world. All I can say is that, if it were 'history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or 'cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region (I p. 12). I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap in time between the Fall of Barad-dur and our Days is sufficient for 'literary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'.

I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary TIME, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for PLACE. I prefer that to the contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. However curious, they are alien, and not lovable with the love of blood- kin. MIDDLE-EARTH is (by the way & if such a note is necessary) not my own invention. It is a modernization or alteration (N[ew] E[nglish] D[ictionary] 'a perversion') of an old word for the inhabited world of Men, the OIKOUMENE: middle because thought of vaguely as set amidst the encircling Seas and (in the northern-imagination) between ice of the North and the fire of the South. O. English MIDDEN-GEARD, mediaeval E. MIDDENGERD, MIDDLE-ERD. Many reviewers seem to assume that Middle-earth is another planet!

From Letter #325:

The 'immortals' who were permitted to leave Middle-earth and seek AMAN -- the undying lands of VALINOR and ERESSEA, an island assigned to the ELDAR -- set sail in ships specially made and hallowed for this voyage, and steered due West towards the ancient site of these lands. They only set out after sundown; but if any keen-eyed observer from that shore had watched one of these ships he might have seen that it never became hull-down but dwindled only by distance until it vanished in the twilight: it followed the straight road to the true West and not the bent road of the earth's surface. As it vanished it left the physical world. There was no return. The Elves who took this road and those 'mortals' who by special grace went with them, had abandoned the 'History of the world' and could play no further part in it.

[Agburanar]

I think it's free to imagination, however I got the impression it was flat at first, then was made round when the world was reformed. Thus the 'straight way' into the west left the surface of Arda completely.

[Rána Eressëa]

When Aman was separated from the world it is quoted, "when the world was made round". So obviously from that, it started out as a flat world. And as I'm sure a good deal of people know, this would not pose a problem for the sun and moon because they both hung in the sky like this: http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo...sunandmoon.jpg

Also, Arien steered the sun across the sky each day while by night Tilion did the same with the moon. Therefore, the world could have been flat and was. It was only then made round when Aman was taken off of the natural ground of Arda and placed above it.

[Michael Martinez]

Yes. The mythology calls for a transition from a flat world to a round world.

[Ñólendil]

'Course in the "newest" mythology the Earth was always round.