Beowulf inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous lecture “The Monsters and the Critics.”
Tolkien delivered the lecture in 1936, arguing that Beowulf should be valued as a work of imaginative poetry rather than treated merely as evidence for reconstructing Germanic history. He emphasized the poem’s monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, as central artistic elements.
The lecture became one of the most influential twentieth-century essays on Beowulf criticism. Tolkien’s professional expertise in Old and Middle English helped him challenge approaches that focused too narrowly on historical fragments and background material.
The essay also helps explain Tolkien’s own interest in heroic legend, monsters, dragons, and the relationship between ancient language and modern literature. Beowulf was not written by Tolkien; it is an anonymous Old English poem composed centuries before him.