What is the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture and essay on the critical study of Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture and essay on the critical study of Beowulf is titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

Tolkien first delivered the work as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy on 25 November 1936. It was later published in the Proceedings of the British Academy in 1937. The essay became one of the most influential modern discussions of the Old English poem.

Tolkien argued that critics had focused too heavily on historical fragments and archaeological clues while overlooking Beowulf as a carefully constructed work of literature. He defended the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, as central to its meaning rather than as distracting leftovers from older myths.

The essay helped change academic attitudes toward Beowulf and is frequently studied alongside Tolkien’s work as a philologist. It is separate from his later lecture On Fairy-Stories, which explored fantasy, myth, and storytelling.