Beowulf: the monsters and the critics
Encyclopedia
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" was a 1936 lecture given by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

 on literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 on the Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

ic epic poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

. It was first published in that year in Proceedings of the British Academy
Proceedings of the British Academy
The Proceedings of the British Academy is a peer-reviewed academic journal. The publication consists of conference proceedings and lectures, and several of the individual volumes have their own unique titles. Articles from volume 51 onwards are available as PDF files for members, with the first...

, and has since been reprinted in many collections, including in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
The Monsters and the Critics
The Monsters and the Critics is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's scholarly linguistic essays edited by his son Christopher and published posthumously in 1983.The essays are:* "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" looks at Beowulf....

, the 1983 collection of Tolkien's academic papers
Academic publishing
Academic publishing describes the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in journal article, book or thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called...

 edited by Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...

.

This paper is regarded as a formative work in modern Beowulf studies. In this talk, Tolkien speaks against critics who play down the fantastic
Fantastic
The Fantastic is a literary term that describes a quality of other literary genres, and, in some cases, is used as a genre in and of itself, although in this case it is often conflated with the Supernatural. The term was originated in the structuralist theory of critic Tzvetan Todorov in his work...

 elements of the poem (such as Grendel
Grendel
Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...

 and the dragon
The Dragon (Beowulf)
The final act of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, depicts the hero Beowulf's fight with a dragon, the third monster he encounters in the epic. Returning from Heorot, where he killed Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats, and rules peacefully for 50 years until a slave...

) in favour of using Beowulf solely as a source for Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 history. Tolkien argues that rather than being merely extraneous, these elements are key to the narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 and should be the focus of study. In doing so he drew attention to the previously neglected literary
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 qualities of the poem and argued that it should be studied as a work of art
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...

, not just as a historical document
Historical document
Historical documents are documents that contain important information about a person, place, or event.Most famous historical documents are either laws, accounts of battles , or the exploits of the powerful...

. Later critics who agreed with Tolkien on this point have routinely cited him to defend their arguments.

The paper remains a common source for students and scholars studying Beowulf and was praised by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...

 in the introduction to his translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 of the poem. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson call it in their Beowulf, An Edition (1998) "the most influential literary criticism of the poem ever written". The paper also sheds light on many of Tolkien's ideas about literature and is a source for those seeking to understand his writings.

The lecture is based on a longer lecture series, which exists in two manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 versions published together as Beowulf and the Critics
Beowulf and the Critics
Beowulf and the Critics by J. R. R. Tolkien is a book edited by Michael D. C. Drout that presents scholary editions of the two manuscript versions of Tolkien's essays or lecture series "Beowulf and the Critics", which served as the basis for the much shorter 1936 lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and...

(2002), edited by Michael D. C. Drout
Michael D. C. Drout
Michael D. C. Drout is the Prentice Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at Wheaton College and an author and editor specializing in Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature, science fiction and fantasy, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin.Drout holds a...

.

Editions (incomplete list)

  • "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." Proceedings of the British Academy, 22 (1936), 245–95 (online version here)
  • Tolkien, J. R. R. The Monsters and the Critics
    The Monsters and the Critics
    The Monsters and the Critics is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's scholarly linguistic essays edited by his son Christopher and published posthumously in 1983.The essays are:* "Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" looks at Beowulf....

    (1983). London: George Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-0480-9019-0
  • Nicholson, Lewis E. (Ed.) (1963). An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0-268-00006-9
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