J.R.R. Tolkien delivered “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” as a lecture in 1936.
The lecture was presented at the British Academy on 25 November 1936. It argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of literature, not treated merely as a historical source or a collection of clues about Anglo-Saxon society. Tolkien’s approach helped redirect scholarly attention toward the poem’s artistic structure and central themes.
The essay especially defended the importance of the monsters, including Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon. Tolkien maintained that these figures were not embarrassing distractions but essential to the poem’s design and meaning.
The work became one of the most influential pieces of modern Beowulf criticism. It also illustrates the close connection between Tolkien’s academic expertise and his imaginative writing. His familiarity with Old English poetry informed his sense of myth, heroic conflict, and the relationship between monsters and human mortality.