Tolkien’s famous 1936 Oxford lecture critically re-evaluated Beowulf.
He delivered “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” as a lecture in 1936, arguing that scholars had focused too heavily on using the poem as historical evidence. Tolkien urged readers to take its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, seriously as central artistic elements rather than treating them as secondary obstacles.
The lecture became one of the most influential works in modern Beowulf criticism. Tolkien’s argument helped shift attention toward the poem’s structure, symbolism, tone, and artistry. His professional expertise in Old English gave the essay unusual authority, while his own interest in myth and heroic literature made the subject especially suited to him.
Beowulf survives in a single medieval manuscript and is generally dated to a period between the eighth and early eleventh centuries, though its exact composition date remains uncertain. Tolkien’s response was about literary criticism, not an attempt to identify the poem’s author, who is unknown.