J.R.R. Tolkien first delivered his lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” in 1936.
Tolkien presented the lecture as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy on 25 November 1936. It argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of poetry rather than treated mainly as a historical document or a collection of sources.
The lecture defended the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, as central to its artistic structure. Tolkien claimed that critics had too often allowed archaeological and historical details to overshadow the poem’s imaginative unity and theme of courage in the face of inevitable defeat.
The essay became one of the most influential modern studies of Beowulf. It also offers useful context for Tolkien’s own fiction, though it should not be read as a direct explanation of every element in Middle-earth.