Editing Atlantis (section)

==Literary interpretations==

===Ancient versions===
[[File:POxy1084 Hellanicus Atlantis.png|thumb|upright=0.8|A fragment of ''Atlantis'' by [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]]]]
In order to give his account of Atlantis [[Verisimilitude (fiction)|verisimilitude]], Plato mentions that the story was heard by [[Solon]] in Egypt, and transmitted orally over several generations through the family of Dropides, until it reached Critias, a dialogue speaker in ''Timaeus'' and ''Critias''.<ref>Smith, O. D. (2016). "The Atlantis Story: An Authentic Oral Tradition?". ''Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures''. 10(2): 10-17.</ref> Solon had supposedly tried to adapt the Atlantis [[oral tradition]] into a poem (that if published, was to be greater than the works of [[Hesiod]] and [[Homer]]). While it was never completed, Solon passed on the story to Dropides. Modern classicists deny the existence of Solon's Atlantis poem and the story as an oral tradition.<ref>Mauro Tulli, "The Atlantis poem in the Timaeus-Critias", in ''The Platonic Art of Philosophy'', Cambridge University 2013, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uXRGAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA269 pp. 269–282]</ref>

Instead, Plato is thought to be the sole inventor or fabricator.
[[Hellanicus of Lesbos]] used the word "Atlantis" as the title for a poem published before Plato,<ref>Bell, H. Idris, "Bibliography: Graeco-Roman Egypt A. Papyri (1915–1919)", ''The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology'', Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr. 1920), pp. 119–146. "The following papyrus, 1359, which Grenfell and Hunt identified as also from the Catalogue, is regarded by C. Robert as part of a separate epic, which he calls Atlantis."</ref> a fragment of which may be [[Oxyrhynchus]] Papyrus 11, 1359.<ref>P.Oxy. 1359. See Carl Robert (1917): ''Eine epische Atlantias'', ''Hermes'', Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul. 1917), pp. 477–79.</ref> This work only describes the Atlantides, the daughters of Atlas, and has no relation to Plato's Atlantis account.

In the new era, the third century AD [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonist]] Zoticus wrote an epic poem based on Plato's account of Atlantis.<ref>[[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]], ''Life of Plotinus'', 7=35.</ref> Plato's work may already have inspired [[parody|parodic]] imitation, however. Writing only a few decades after the ''Timaeus'' and ''Critias'', the historian [[Theopompus]] of [[Chios]] wrote of a land beyond the ocean known as [[Meropis]]. This description was included in Book 8 of his ''Philippica'', which contains a dialogue between [[Silenus]] and King [[Midas]]. Silenus describes the Meropids, a race of men who grow to twice normal size, and inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis: ''Eusebes'' ({{lang|grc|Εὐσεβής}}, "Pious-town") and ''Machimos'' ({{lang|grc|Μάχιμος}}, "Fighting-town").<ref name="Nesselrath 1998 pp. 1">[[Heinz-Günther Nesselrath|Nesselrath, HG]] (1998). 'Theopomps Meropis und Platon: Nachahmung und Parodie', ''Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft'', vol. 1, pp.&nbsp;1–8.</ref>

He also reports that an army of ten million soldiers crossed the ocean to conquer [[Hyperborea]], but abandoned this proposal when they realized that the Hyperboreans were the luckiest people on earth. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has argued that these and other details of Silenus' story are meant as imitation and exaggeration of the Atlantis story, by parody, for the purpose of exposing Plato's ideas to ridicule.<ref name="Nesselrath 1998 pp. 1"/>

===Utopias and dystopias===

The creation of [[Utopian and dystopian fiction]]s was renewed after the Renaissance, most notably in Francis Bacon's ''[[New Atlantis]]'' (1627), the description of an ideal society that he located off the western coast of America. Thomas Heyrick (1649–1694) followed him with "The New Atlantis" (1687), a satirical poem in three parts. His new continent of uncertain location, perhaps even a floating island either in the sea or the sky, serves as background for his exposure of what he described in a second edition as "A True Character of Popery and Jesuitism".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Heyrick |first1=Thomas |title=The New Atlantis: A Poem, in Three Books |url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A43565.0001.001?view=toc|date=1687 |location=London |publisher=Privately printed |via= ''Early English Books Online'', University of Michigan Library Digital Collections |access-date=11 June 2024}}</ref>

The title of ''[[The New Atalantis]]'' by [[Delarivier Manley]] (1709), distinguished from the two others by the single letter, is an equally dystopian work but set this time on a fictional Mediterranean island.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://archive.org/stream/secretmemoirsman00manl#page/n5/mode/2up| title = Secret memoirs and manners of several persons of quality, of both sexes. From the new Atalantis, an island in the Mediteranean|author= Delarivier Manley |author-link= Delarivier Manley | year = 1709}}</ref> In it sexual violence and exploitation is made a metaphor for the hypocritical behaviour of politicians in their dealings with the general public.<ref>Nováková, Soňa, [http://www.phil.muni.cz/angl/thepes/thepes_02_17.pdf pp. 121–6 "Sex and Politics: Delarivier Manley's New Atalantis"]</ref> In Manley's case, the target of satire was the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig Party]], while in David Maclean Parry's ''[[The Scarlet Empire]]'' (1906) it is [[Socialism]] as practised in foundered Atlantis.<ref>{{cite book| url = http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=dul1.ark:/13960/t3vt2bh65;view=1up;seq=7| title = The scarlet empire / by David M. Parry ; with illustrations by Hermann C. Wall| date = April 2022| publisher = Grosset & Dunlap}}</ref> It was followed in Russia by [[Velimir Khlebnikov]]'s poem ''The Fall of Atlantis'' (''Gibel' Atlantidy'', 1912), which is set in a future rationalist dystopia that has discovered the secret of immortality and is so dedicated to progress that it has lost touch with the past. When the high priest of this ideology is tempted by a slave girl into an act of irrationality, he murders her and precipitates a second flood, above which her severed head floats vengefully among the stars.<ref>Boris Thomson, ''Lot's Wife and the Venus of Milo: Conflicting Attitudes to the Cultural Heritage in Modern Russia'', Cambridge University 1978, [https://books.google.com/books?id=y3UTbrInnAoC&pg=PA77 pp. 77–8]</ref>

A slightly later work, ''The Ancient of Atlantis'' (Boston, 1915) by Albert Armstrong Manship, expounds the Atlantean wisdom that is to redeem the earth. Its three parts consist of a verse narrative of the life and training of an Atlantean wise one, followed by his Utopian moral teachings and then a psychic drama set in modern times in which a reincarnated child embodying the lost wisdom is reborn on earth.<ref>Manship, Albert Armstrong. ''[https://archive.org/stream/ancientatlantis00mansgoog#page/n15/mode/2up The ancient of Atlantis, an epic poem]'' Sherman, French & Co. 1915.</ref>

In [[Hispanic]] eyes, Atlantis had a more intimate interpretation. The land had been a colonial power which, although it had brought civilization to ancient Europe, had also enslaved its peoples. Its tyrannical fall from grace had contributed to the fate that had overtaken it, but now its disappearance had unbalanced the world. This was the point of view of [[Jacint Verdaguer]]'s vast mythological epic ''L'Atlantida'' (1877). After the sinking of the former continent, Hercules travels east across the Atlantic to found the city of [[Barcelona]] and then departs westward again to the [[Hesperides]]. The story is told by a hermit to a shipwrecked mariner, who is inspired to follow in his tracks and so "call the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old". This mariner, of course, was [[Christopher Columbus]].<ref>Robert Hughes, ''Barcelona'', London 1992, [https://books.google.com/books?id=HJd9esHdz5YC&q=Atlantida+%22poem%22&pg=PA341 pp. 341–3]</ref>

Verdaguer's poem was written in [[Catalan language|Catalan]], but was widely translated in both Europe and Hispano-America.<ref>Isidor Cònsul, [https://web.archive.org/web/20160207001536/http://www.visat.cat/traduccions-literatura-catalana/eng/ressenyes/85/122/0/3/poesia/jacint-verdaguer.html "The translations of Verdaguer"]. Visat.</ref> One response was the similarly entitled Argentinian ''Atlantida'' of [[Olegario Víctor Andrade]] (1881), which sees in "Enchanted Atlantis that Plato foresaw, a golden promise to the fruitful race" of Latins.<ref>''Obras Poeticas'', [https://archive.org/stream/3202277#page/151/mode/2up/search/atlantida pp. 151–166]; there is a translation of canto 8 by [http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/atl%E2%94%9C%C3%ADntida Elijah Clarence Hills]</ref> The bad example of the colonising world remains, however. [[José Juan Tablada]] characterises its threat in his "De Atlántida" (1894) through the beguiling picture of the lost world populated by the underwater creatures of Classical myth, among whom is the [[Siren (mythology)|Siren]] of its final stanza with

{{poemquote|
her eye on the keel of the wandering vessel 
that in passing deflowers the sea's smooth mirror,
launching into the night her amorous warbling
and the dulcet lullaby of her treacherous voice!<ref>''Los Trovadores de México'' (Barcelona, 1898), [https://books.google.com/books?id=1MwpAAAAYAAJ&dq=Tablada+%22De+Atl%C3%A1ntida%22&pg=PA413 pp.383-4]</ref>
}}

There is a similar ambivalence in [[Janus Djurhuus]]' six-stanza "Atlantis" (1917), where a celebration of the [[Faroese language conflict|Faroese linguistic revival]] grants it an ancient pedigree by linking Greek to Norse legend. In the poem a female figure rising from the sea against a background of Classical palaces is recognised as a priestess of Atlantis. The poet recalls "that the Faroes lie there in the north Atlantic Ocean/ where before lay the poet-dreamt lands," but also that in Norse belief, such a figure only appears to those about to drown.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Joensen |first=Leyvoy |title=Atlantis, Bábylon, Tórshavn: The Djurhuus Brothers and William Heinesen in Faroese Literary History |journal=Scandinavian Studies |volume=74 |issue=2 |year=2002 |jstor=40920372 |pages=181–204 [esp. 192–4] }}</ref>

===A land lost in the distance===
[[File:Faroe stamp 493 Djurhuus poems - atlantis.jpg|thumb|A Faroe Islands postage stamp honoring [[Janus Djurhuus]]'s poem "Atlantis" ]]

The fact that Atlantis is a lost land has made of it a metaphor for something no longer attainable. For the American poet [[Edith Willis Linn Forbes]], "The Lost Atlantis" stands for idealisation of the past; the present moment can only be treasured once that is realised.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.blackcatpoems.com/f/the_lost_atlantis.html| title = The Lost Atlantis|author=Edith Willis Linn Forbes|author-link=Edith Willis Linn Forbes|publisher=Black Cat Poems|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100923162209/http://www.blackcatpoems.com/f/the_lost_atlantis.html|archive-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> [[Ella Wheeler Wilcox]] finds the location of "The Lost Land" (1910) in one's carefree youthful past.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.litscape.com/author/Ella_Wheeler_Wilcox/The_Lost_Land.html| title = The Lost Land|publisher=Litscape|author= Ella Wheeler Wilcox|author-link= Ella Wheeler Wilcox}}</ref> Similarly, for the Irish poet [[Eavan Boland]] in "Atlantis, a lost sonnet" (2007), the idea was defined when "the old fable-makers searched hard for a word/ to convey that what is gone is gone forever".<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/atlantis%E2%80%94-lost-sonnet| title = Atlantis—A Lost Sonnet|author=Eavan Boland|author-link=Eavan Boland|website=Poets.org| access-date = 7 February 2016| archive-date = 22 April 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160422224620/https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/atlantis%E2%80%94-lost-sonnet| url-status = dead}}</ref>

For some male poets too, the idea of Atlantis is constructed from what cannot be obtained. [[Charles Bewley]] in his [[Newdigate Prize]] poem (1910) thinks it grows from dissatisfaction with one's condition,

{{poemquote|
And, because life is partly sweet 
And ever girt about with pain, 
We take the sweetness, and are fain 
To set it free from grief's alloy
}}

in a dream of Atlantis.<ref>[[Charles Bewley|Bewley, Charles]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160423071213/http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/charles-bewley/atlantis-the-newdigate-prize-poem-1910-lwe/1-atlantis-the-newdigate-prize-poem-1910-lwe.shtml ''Atlantis; The Newdigate prize poem, 1910 online'']. 1910, p. 11. Via ebooksread.com.</ref> Similarly for the Australian [[Gary Catalano]] in a 1982 prose poem, it is "a vision that sank under the weight of its own perfection".<ref>Gary Catalano, Heaven of Rags, Sydney 1982, [http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/catalano-gary/atlantis-0359028 ''Atlantis'']. Australian Poetry Library. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423174323/http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/catalano-gary/atlantis-0359028 |date=23 April 2016 }}</ref> [[W. H. Auden]], however, suggests a way out of such frustration through the metaphor of journeying toward Atlantis in his poem of 1941.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.poeticous.com/w-h-auden/atlantis-1| title = Atlantis|author=W. H. Auden|author-link=W. H. Auden|publisher=poeticious.com}}</ref> While travelling, he advises the one setting out, you will meet with many definitions of the goal in view, only realising at the end that the way has all the time led inward.<ref>[[Bonnie Costello]], "Setting out for Atlantis", from ''Auden at Work'', Palgrave Macmillan 2015, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AauhCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 pp. 133–53]</ref>

=== Epic verse narratives ===

A few late-19th century verse narratives complement the [[Atlantis in popular culture#Fiction|genre fiction]] that was beginning to be written at the same period. Two of them report the disaster that overtook the continent as related by long-lived survivors. In [[Frederick Tennyson]]'s ''Atlantis'' (1888), an ancient Greek mariner sails west and discovers an inhabited island which is all that remains of the former kingdom. He learns of its end and views the shattered remnant of its former glory, from which a few had escaped to set up the Mediterranean civilisations.<ref>[[Frederick Tennyson|Tennyson, Frederick]]. ''Atlantis''. Via Black Cat Poems; [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/t/atlantis_part_i.html part 1] and [http://www.blackcatpoems.com/t/atlantis_part_ii.html part 2].</ref> In the second, ''Mona, Queen of Lost Atlantis: An Idyllic Re-embodiment of Long Forgotten History'' (Los Angeles CA 1925) by James Logue Dryden (1840–1925), the story is told in a series of visions. A Seer is taken to Mona's burial chamber in the ruins of Atlantis, where she revives and describes the catastrophe. There follows a survey of the lost civilisations of Hyperborea and Lemuria as well as Atlantis, accompanied by much spiritualist lore.<ref>{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=AZ3eIcpA4coC| title = Mona, Queen of Lost Atlantis| isbn = 978-0-7873-0298-6| last1 = Dryden| first1 = J. L.| date = December 1998| publisher = Health Research Books}}</ref>

William Walton Hoskins (1856–1919) admits to the readers of his ''Atlantis and other poems'' (Cleveland OH, 1881), that he is only 24. Its melodramatic plot concerns the poisoning of the descendant of god-born kings. The usurping poisoner is poisoned in his turn, following which the continent is swallowed in the waves.<ref>Hoskins, William Walton. [https://archive.org/details/atlantisotherpoe00hosk ''Atlantis, and other poems'']. Sherman & Co. 1881, pp. 7–127.</ref> Asian gods people the landscape of ''The Lost Island'' (Ottawa 1889) by Edward Taylor Fletcher (1816–97). An angel foresees impending catastrophe and that the people will be allowed to escape if their semi-divine rulers will sacrifice themselves.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://archive.org/stream/lostislandatlant00flet/lostislandatlant00flet_djvu.txt| title = The lost island (Atlantis)| year = 1895|author= Edward Taylor Fletcher|publisher=A. Bureau & Frères}}</ref> A final example, Edward N. Beecher's ''The Lost Atlantis or The Great Deluge of All'' (Cleveland OH, 1898) is just a doggerel vehicle for its author's opinions: that the continent was the location of the Garden of Eden; that Darwin's theory of evolution is correct, as are Donnelly's views.<ref>{{cite book| url = http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t5q81xg08;view=1up;seq=9| title = The lost Atlantis; or, "The great deluge of all." |author=Edward N. Beecher|via= Hathi Trust| year = 1897| publisher = The Brooks Company}}</ref>

Atlantis was to become a theme in Russia following the 1890s, taken up in unfinished poems by [[Valery Bryusov]] and [[Konstantin Balmont]], as well as in a drama by the schoolgirl [[Larissa Reissner|Larissa Reisner]].<ref>{{Cite thesis |type=M.A. thesis |first=Madeleine |last=Pichler |title=Atlantis als Motiv in der russischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts |publisher=Vienna University |year=2013 |url=https://othes.univie.ac.at/25256/1/2013-01-21_0401826.pdf#page=27 |pages=27–30 |url-status=live |archive-date=8 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508181855/https://othes.univie.ac.at/25256/1/2013-01-21_0401826.pdf }}</ref> One other long narrative poem was published in New York by George V. Golokhvastoff. His 250-page ''The Fall of Atlantis'' (1938) records how a high priest, distressed by the prevailing degeneracy of the ruling classes, seeks to create an androgynous being from royal twins as a means to overcome this polarity. When he is unable to control the forces unleashed by his occult ceremony, the continent is destroyed.<ref>Pichler, pp. 37–40.</ref>