What was the name of Tolkien’s 1936 lecture that reshaped scholarly views of Beowulf?

Tolkien’s 1936 lecture that reshaped scholarly views of Beowulf was “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”

Tolkien delivered the lecture at the University of Oxford in 1936. He argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of art rather than treated mainly as a damaged historical source. Earlier scholarship often focused heavily on the poem’s references to Germanic history, ignoring the artistic structure created by its monsters and themes.

Tolkien defended the importance of Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon. In his view, these figures were not embarrassing distractions from the poem’s serious material; they were central to its design and meaning. The lecture became one of the most influential modern discussions of the Old English poem.

The work is an essay as well as a lecture text, and its title is sometimes shortened in casual references. It should not be confused with Tolkien’s separate essay “On Fairy-Stories,” which discusses fantasy and the nature of fairy stories.