J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his famous 1936 lecture about the Old English poem Beowulf.
The lecture, published as “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” argued that scholars had undervalued the poem by focusing too narrowly on historical details and linguistic evidence. Tolkien insisted that its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, were central to its artistic design rather than embarrassing obstacles to serious interpretation.
The essay became one of the most influential works of modern Beowulf criticism. Tolkien’s scholarship helped shift attention toward the poem’s structure, themes, symbolism, and imaginative power. His expertise in Old English also influenced his own fiction, though Beowulf is not simply a sourcebook for Middle-earth.
Beowulf survives in a single medieval manuscript and is generally dated to the early medieval period, though its exact composition date remains debated. The poem’s hero fights Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon.