What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first published scholarly essay on Beowulf’s literary importance?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s influential scholarly essay was titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

Tolkien first delivered the work as a lecture at Oxford in 1936, and it was published later that year. He argued that Beowulf should be read primarily as a work of art rather than merely as evidence for Germanic history, mythology, or social customs.

The essay defended the importance of the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon. Tolkien maintained that these figures were central to the poem’s structure and meaning, not distractions from a supposedly more valuable historical core.

The lecture became one of the most influential modern studies of Beowulf. Its emphasis on literary form, theme, and the poet’s artistic choices also helps explain why Tolkien’s own fiction gives mythic creatures such a serious narrative and moral role.