J.R.R. Tolkien studied and discussed the Old English epic Beowulf in his famous 1936 lecture.
Tolkien delivered “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” at the British Academy in London. The lecture challenged approaches that treated the poem mainly as a damaged historical document or a source of information about Germanic society. Tolkien argued that Beowulf should be valued as a carefully shaped work of art.
He emphasized the importance of the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon. Rather than dismissing them as crude additions, he argued that they help organize the poem’s themes of courage, mortality, and the limits of human power.
The lecture became one of the most influential modern works of Beowulf criticism. Tolkien’s scholarly engagement with the poem also helped explain why Old English heroic tradition had such a strong presence in his own fiction.