What 1936 lecture by J.R.R. Tolkien helped reshape modern study of Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture was titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

Delivered as the British Academy’s Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, it argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of poetry rather than treated mainly as a historical source. Tolkien defended the importance of the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon.

Earlier scholarship often focused heavily on reconstructing Germanic history from the poem. Tolkien instead emphasized its artistic structure, balance, and imaginative power, helping redirect Beowulf criticism toward literary interpretation.

The lecture was published in 1937 and remains one of Tolkien’s most influential scholarly essays. Its interest in monsters as central artistic elements also resonates with the mythic creatures in his own fiction.