J.R.R. Tolkien famously analyzed Beowulf in his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”
The lecture argued that Beowulf should be valued as a work of literature, not merely as a historical source about Germanic society. Tolkien defended the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, as central to its artistic structure rather than embarrassing distractions.
His argument helped influence modern Beowulf scholarship. Tolkien emphasized the poem’s balance between heroic achievement and awareness of mortality, a perspective that also resonates with themes in his fiction.
Tolkien was a specialist in Old and Middle English, so Beowulf was part of his academic field as well as an important literary influence. The lecture was later published and became one of the most widely discussed critical works on the poem.