J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1936 work Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics focused on the poem Beowulf.
Tolkien delivered the lecture as a major intervention in Beowulf scholarship. He argued that critics should treat the poem as a work of art rather than merely as a historical source or a collection of evidence about Germanic society. He emphasized the literary importance of its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon.
Before Tolkien’s lecture, some scholars had undervalued the poem’s imaginative structure because it survives in a single Old English manuscript and contains legendary material. Tolkien helped redirect attention toward its composition, symbolism, balance, and poetic power.
The lecture became one of the most influential modern essays on Beowulf. Tolkien’s expertise as an Old English scholar also informed his own fiction, particularly his interest in heroic traditions, ancient languages, dragons, and doomed kingdoms.