J.R.R. Tolkien studied and lectured extensively on the Old English epic Beowulf.
Beowulf was central to Tolkien’s academic work as a scholar of Old English. His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” argued that the poem should be valued as a carefully constructed work of art, rather than treated merely as a historical source about Germanic culture.
Tolkien emphasized the importance of the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the dragon. His approach strongly influenced modern Beowulf scholarship and helped restore critical attention to the poem’s literary structure and imaginative power.
Tolkien also translated Beowulf and wrote related scholarship, but his translation was published posthumously in 2014 as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Other Old English poems mattered to him, yet Beowulf is the specific epic most closely associated with his major lecture and academic legacy.