Giuseppe Pezzini, Professor at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; Paolo Prosperi, Priest, Fraternità San Carlo Borromeo.

In The Lord of the Rings, the characters are called to embrace a mission that is first and foremost individual, including Frodo’s mission to carry the Ring alone to Mount Doom and become the great hobbit hero of the Third Age. At the same time, Frodo’s mission has implications for the good of all and would not be conceivable without his friendship with Sam and Gandalf, and more generally without the Fellowship of the Ring that accompanies him. These two dimensions – individual and communal – are not in opposition in Tolkien’s work but are two indispensable poles of the same experience, like two strands of the same narrative DNA (the ‘mission’ in its various semantic meanings). To divide and oppose them is a constant temptation in human history, which necessarily generates violence, as demonstrated by the great ideologies of the 20th century (communism and individualism in their various forms). On the 50th anniversary of Tolkien’s death, there will be a dialogue about one of the key paradoxes of The Lord of the Rings, which also explains much of its charm and prophetic content.