J.R.R. Tolkien discussed Beowulf in his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” The lecture argued that the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, were central to its structure and meaning rather than distractions from its historical material.
Tolkien delivered the lecture at the British Academy on 25 November 1936. It later became a landmark in Beowulf scholarship because it helped redirect attention from attempts to treat the poem mainly as a historical document or a collection of surviving folklore.
The argument also reflects Tolkien’s own literary interests. He believed that the poem should be read as a carefully made work of art, with its themes of mortality, courage, and conflict shaping its design. His approach influenced generations of scholars and readers.
Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, and his expertise in Old English deeply informed both his academic writing and his invented languages and mythologies.