What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture about the Old English epic Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture was titled 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 He argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of literature rather than treated mainly as an imperfect historical document. In particular, he defended the importance of the poem’s monsters, including Grendel and the dragon, to its artistic structure.

The lecture became one of the most influential modern studies of Beowulf. Tolkien maintained that the poem’s themes of courage, mortality, and inevitable destruction were central to its meaning. His argument helped shift scholarly attention toward the poem’s composition, imagery, and tragic vision.

The essay also helps explain why Tolkien’s fiction cannot be separated from his scholarship. His knowledge of Old English language and literature informed his invented cultures, names, and narrative methods. However, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics is a scholarly lecture and essay, not a Middle-earth story or a retelling of the epic.