Atlantis Myth

Atlantis

Atlantis is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. By describing Atlantis as a naval empire from the west that had conquered most of Europe and Libya, Plato purposely created a literary contrast with the Achaemenid Empire, the great land-based power that ruled the east. In Plato's account, Atlantis loses divine favor after an ill-fated campaign against a fictionalized Athens, and subsequently submerges into the Atlantic Ocean. By portraying the victorious Athens in the image of his ideal state from the Republic, Plato intended the Atlantis story to bear witness to the superiority of his concept of a state.

Myth

Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is different from the ordinary sense of the term myth, meaning a belief that is not true, as the veracity of a piece of folklore is entirely irrelevant to determining whether it constitutes a myth.

myth

Noun

1. A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding a god, a hero, the origin of the world or of a people, etc.
2. Such stories as a genre.