Which 1936 lecture by J.R.R. Tolkien changed modern criticism of Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture 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 critics had focused too heavily on the historical fragments and linguistic evidence surrounding Beowulf while neglecting the poem’s artistic unity. In Tolkien’s view, the monsters were not embarrassing distractions from the poem’s serious material; they were central to its design.

The lecture became one of the most influential pieces of Beowulf criticism in the twentieth century. It helped shift attention toward the poem as a work of literature rather than merely a source of information about Anglo-Saxon history. Tolkien’s expertise in Old English supported his argument, while his own imaginative writing gave him an unusually strong interest in myth, monsters, and heroic storytelling.