What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture on Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 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.

The lecture argued that Beowulf should be valued as a unified work of art rather than treated merely as evidence about Germanic history, language, or archaeology. Tolkien defended the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, as central to its structure and meaning.

The essay became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf scholarship. It helped change critical attitudes toward the poem and contributed to Tolkien’s reputation as a major scholar of Old English literature. It is distinct from Tolkien’s other famous lecture-essay, On Fairy-Stories, which addresses the nature and purpose of fairy stories.