What was the title of Tolkien’s 1937 essay about the Old English poem Beowulf?

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics was the title of Tolkien’s 1937 essay about the Old English poem Beowulf.

Tolkien delivered the lecture at Oxford on 25 November 1936, and it was published in 1937. The essay became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf scholarship. Tolkien argued that critics had focused too heavily on historical details and had failed to appreciate the poem as a unified work of art.

He defended the importance of the monsters, especially Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon. In Tolkien’s view, these figures were not distracting material added to an otherwise historical poem; they were central to its design and meaning. He also praised the poem’s treatment of human mortality and the tension between courage and inevitable loss.

The essay helped change academic attitudes toward Beowulf. Tolkien’s own expertise in Old English, Norse literature, and philology shaped both his argument and his later creative writing. The work is separate from “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien’s later lecture and essay on fantasy.