Beowulf was the Germanic poem J.R.R. Tolkien translated and studied extensively.
Tolkien’s academic career was closely connected with Old English literature, and Beowulf was one of his most important scholarly interests. His translation was not published in full during his lifetime; Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary appeared posthumously in 2014, edited by Christopher Tolkien.
His famous 1936 lecture, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” argued that the poem’s monsters were central to its artistic design rather than embarrassing distractions from its historical value. The lecture became highly influential in Beowulf scholarship.
Tolkien also translated or worked on other medieval texts, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. Those works can cause confusion when a question asks specifically about the Old English heroic poem featuring Grendel, his mother, and a dragon: that poem is Beowulf.