J.R.R. Tolkien discussed Beowulf in his influential 1936 lecture and essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”
Tolkien delivered the lecture at the British Academy in 1936. He argued that scholars had undervalued the poem’s monsters and imaginative structure by treating it mainly as evidence for history, language, or Germanic culture. His central claim helped redirect attention toward Beowulf as a work of literature.
The Old English poem follows Beowulf’s battles with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. Tolkien’s discussion did not reject historical or linguistic study; instead, it insisted that those approaches should not obscure the poem’s artistic design.
The essay became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf criticism. Tolkien’s expertise in Old English also shaped his translations, teaching, and fiction, although Beowulf itself is not a Middle-earth story.