Beowulf inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s scholarly essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”
Tolkien delivered the lecture at Oxford in 1936, and it was published the same year. He argued that critics should take the poem’s monsters seriously rather than treating them as unimportant obstacles surrounding historical material.
The essay became one of the most influential modern studies of Beowulf. Tolkien’s reading emphasized the poem’s artistic structure and its treatment of mortality, courage, and loss. His expertise in Old English also informed his use of heroic and legendary themes in fiction.