![]() Tolkien argues that rather than being merely extraneous, these elements are key to the narrative and should be the focus of study. ![]() In it, Tolkien speaks against critics who play down the monsters in the poem, namely Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon, in favour of using Beowulf solely as a source for Anglo-Saxon history. Tolkien's essay " Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", initially delivered as the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture at the British Academy in 1936, and first published as a paper in the Proceedings of the British Academy that same year, is regarded as a formative work in modern Beowulf studies. Scholars of Anglo-Saxon agree that the work was influential, transforming the study of Beowulf. Drout called it the most important article ever written about the poem. The work has been praised by critics including the poet and Beowulf translator Seamus Heaney. He points out that the poem's theme is a serious one, mortality, and that the poem is in two parts: the first on Beowulf as a young man, defeating Grendel and his mother the second on Beowulf in old age, going to his death fighting the dragon. He rebuts suggestions that the poem is an epic or exciting narrative, likening it instead to a strong masonry structure built of blocks that fit together. Tolkien argues that the original poem has almost been lost under the weight of the scholarship on it that Beowulf must be seen as a poem, not just as a historical document and that the quality of its verse and its structure give it a powerful effect. It was first published as a paper in the Proceedings of the British Academy, and has since been reprinted in many collections. Tolkien on literary criticism on the Old English heroic epic poem Beowulf. " Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" was a 1936 lecture given by J. Title page of Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, 1936 Tolkien that transformed Beowulf criticism
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