What was the name of Tolkien’s first published scholarly paper on Beowulf, released in 1936?

Tolkien’s influential 1936 scholarly paper was titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

Tolkien delivered the paper as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy in 1936. It challenged the dominant critical tendency to treat Beowulf mainly as evidence about Germanic history, archaeology, or folklore rather than as a coherent work of literature.

Tolkien argued that the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, were central to its structure and meaning. He defended the poem as an artistic achievement and emphasized the balance between its two major parts: the youthful hero’s victory over Grendel and the aging king’s final fight with the dragon.

The essay became one of the most important modern studies of Beowulf and helped reshape the poem’s reputation in English literary scholarship. Tolkien’s professional study of Old English poetry also influenced his creative work, including his treatment of heroic traditions, monsters, elegy, and the relationship between fame and mortality.