How to Define a Hero in The Lord of the Rings

Krishnan Venkatesh, professor of Eastern and Western classics at St. John’s College, will examine the many meanings of the hero. A war between the forces of Good and Evil for the fate of Middle-Earth would seem to offer a perfect arena for the display of valor and nobility. Yet Tolkien is deeply ambivalent about the heroic ideal. In The Lord of the Rings, we see competing versions of what a hero means - Boromir, Aragorn, Faramir, Eowyn, Frodo, Sam, and even Gollum all step up in their own courageous ways. No particular formula exists. How interested, then, is Tolkien in the muscular, martial heroism of the great warrior protagonists? Perhaps a subtler, gentler heroism is at play, notably the heroism of an ordinary species such as the Hobbits? In this conversation we explore the dimensions of the heroic in The Lord of the Rings and ask why Tolkien is so lukewarm about traditional warlike heroism.