J.R.R. Tolkien famously lectured about Beowulf in “The Monsters and the Critics.”
Tolkien delivered the lecture in 1936, and it was published the same year. The work is one of the most influential modern studies of Beowulf, the major surviving Old English epic. Tolkien argued that critics should pay attention to the poem as a work of art, especially its structure and central opposition between the human world and monstrous forces.
The lecture challenged approaches that treated Beowulf mainly as a source for historical or folkloric information. Tolkien’s argument helped establish the poem’s literary unity as a central subject of academic discussion.
Beowulf is not a Tolkien composition, although Tolkien’s fiction was influenced by Old English language and literature. His later essay “On Translating Beowulf” also shows his continuing engagement with the poem and its difficult language.