Which Tolkien essay, first delivered in 1936, became a landmark study of the poem Beowulf?

Tolkien’s landmark 1936 essay is titled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.

Tolkien first delivered the work as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy in London on 25 November 1936. It was later published in the Proceedings of the British Academy in 1937. The essay challenged approaches that treated Beowulf mainly as a historical document or a collection of sources.

Tolkien argued that the poem should be valued as a coherent work of art. He emphasized the importance of its monsters, especially Grendel and the dragon, rather than treating them as distracting leftovers from an earlier mythology. His argument helped reshape modern academic appreciation of the poem.

The essay matters to Tolkien studies because it reveals how seriously he regarded myth, monsters, and literary structure. It also helps explain why heroic and monstrous conflicts are so central in his own fiction.