Which academic essay by J.R.R. Tolkien was published in 1936 and reshaped the study of Beowulf?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics was published in 1936.

Tolkien first delivered the piece as a lecture at the British Academy in November 1936. It argued that scholars had placed too much emphasis on using Beowulf as evidence for history, language, or Germanic culture while neglecting the poem as a work of art.

A central part of Tolkien’s argument is that the monsters are not embarrassing distractions from the poem’s serious material. Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon help give Beowulf its structure and its meditation on mortality, courage, and inevitable defeat.

The essay became one of the most influential works in modern Beowulf criticism. It also illustrates how Tolkien’s academic interests and creative imagination overlapped without making the poem merely a sourcebook for Middle-earth.