J.R.R. Tolkien lectured about Beowulf in his famous 1936 essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”
The essay argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of poetry, not treated merely as a historical source or a collection of folklore. Tolkien emphasized the importance of the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon, in understanding its artistic design.
The Old English poem tells of Beowulf, a hero who fights Grendel, then Grendel’s mother, and finally a dragon in old age. Its surviving manuscript dates from around the year 1000, although the story reflects an earlier Germanic world.
Tolkien’s essay became one of the most influential works in modern Beowulf scholarship. His academic engagement with heroic poetry, monsters, languages, and oral tradition also helped shape the imaginative foundations of his own fiction. Beowulf is not a Tolkien story, although Tolkien’s writing was strongly influenced by it.