Beowulf is the Old English epic addressed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”
Tolkien delivered the lecture in 1936, and it was published the following year. He argued that scholars had undervalued the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, by treating them mainly as obstacles in a historical document. Tolkien emphasized the artistic unity of the poem and the importance of its imaginative structure.
The lecture became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf criticism. It helped shift attention toward the poem as literature rather than merely as evidence about Anglo-Saxon society, language, or history.
Tolkien’s response to Beowulf also connects to his fiction. The poem’s dragon, treasure hoard, heroic culture, and sense of inevitable loss resonate with elements in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien nevertheless created his own characters and settings rather than simply retelling the epic.