Beowulf was the Old English epic that J.R.R. Tolkien lectured on and translated in his academic work.
Tolkien was a leading scholar of Old and Middle English at the University of Oxford. His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” helped reshape academic discussion by arguing that the poem’s monsters were central to its artistic design, not distractions from its historical value.
The epic tells of Beowulf, a hero who fights Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. Tolkien’s engagement with the poem also influenced his own imaginative writing, especially his interest in heroic legend, ancient languages, monsters, and the relationship between history and myth.
Tolkien produced a prose translation of Beowulf, but it was not published during his lifetime. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, edited by Christopher Tolkien, appeared in 2014 and included Tolkien’s related work Sellic Spell.