What academic essay by J.R.R. Tolkien, published in 1936, reshaped modern readings of Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 essay that reshaped modern readings of Beowulf is Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. He first delivered it as a lecture at the British Academy, challenging approaches that treated the poem mainly as evidence for Germanic history or language.

Tolkien argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of art. He emphasized the structural and thematic importance of its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, rather than dismissing them as distracting folklore. His famous image of a tower helped explain how literary works can preserve a valuable view of a lost culture.

The essay became one of the most influential works of Beowulf criticism. It did not claim that historical or linguistic study was useless; instead, Tolkien argued that those approaches should not obscure the poem’s artistic design. On Fairy-Stories is another major Tolkien essay, but it concerns fantasy, fairy stories, and recovery rather than Beowulf specifically.