What was the title of Tolkien’s 1936 lecture that changed how scholars viewed Beowulf?

Tolkien’s 1936 lecture that changed how scholars viewed Beowulf was titled “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”

Tolkien delivered the lecture as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy. He argued that earlier scholars had focused too heavily on historical and archaeological information while treating the poem’s monsters as distractions. Tolkien maintained that Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon were central to the poem’s design and meaning.

The lecture became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf criticism. It encouraged readers to study the poem as a work of literature rather than merely as a source of information about Anglo-Saxon history.

Tolkien’s expertise came from his work as a philologist and Old English scholar. His engagement with Beowulf also influenced his fiction, including the atmosphere of heroic northern literature found throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.