J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture famously studied Beowulf.
His lecture, later published as the essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” argued that the poem should be valued as a work of literature rather than treated merely as a historical source or a collection of linguistic evidence. Tolkien emphasized the importance of its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, to the poem’s structure and meaning.
The essay helped change modern academic attitudes toward Beowulf. Tolkien’s expertise in Old English gave him a detailed understanding of the poem’s language, imagery, and traditional background.
Beowulf also influenced Tolkien’s imagination. Dragons, heroic reputation, treasure, and the tension between courage and mortality appear in both the Old English poem and Tolkien’s fiction, although Beowulf and Middle-earth remain distinct works with different characters and plots.