What is the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture that became a major essay on Beowulf?

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics is the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture and later essay on Beowulf.

Tolkien delivered the lecture at the British Academy in 1936. He argued that earlier scholars had focused too heavily on historical information and linguistic details while neglecting the poem’s artistic unity and imaginative power.

A central part of his argument was that Beowulf’s monsters, including Grendel and the dragon, were not distracting additions. Tolkien maintained that they were essential to the poem’s structure and meaning. His interpretation helped change the way the Old English poem was studied.

The essay became one of Tolkien’s most influential academic works. It also provides useful context for his fiction, because it shows how seriously he regarded myth, monsters, heroic stories, and the relationship between literary imagination and history.