Beowulf strongly influenced J.R.R. Tolkien’s scholarly work and fiction.
Tolkien’s 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” became one of the most influential modern studies of the Old English poem. He argued that its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, were not embarrassing distractions from the poem’s historical material but central to its artistic design.
The poem’s themes of heroic courage, ancient kingdoms, treasure, monsters, mortality, and the passage of time resonate with Tolkien’s own fiction. Beowulf is not a direct source for a single Middle-earth character, but its atmosphere and literary concerns helped shape the way Tolkien approached myth and heroic storytelling.
Other Old English poems, including The Wanderer and The Seafarer, also interested Tolkien, and he drew on Old English language and culture in his work. However, Beowulf is the poem most specifically associated with his major critical intervention and with the broader literary background of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.