What is the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture that became a landmark essay on Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1939 lecture on Beowulf was titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. He delivered it as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy on 25 November 1936; it was published in 1937.

The essay argued that scholars had undervalued Beowulf’s monsters and had focused too narrowly on historical sources. Tolkien treated the poem as a work of art whose structure and imagination deserved serious literary attention.

The lecture became one of the most influential modern discussions of Beowulf. It helped shift criticism toward the poem’s form, themes, and artistic unity.

The date can cause confusion because 1936 was the lecture date, while 1937 was the publication date. On Fairy-Stories is another important Tolkien essay, but it concerns fantasy and sub-creation rather than Beowulf specifically.