Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics give it a powerful effect. 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. 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. The work has been praised by critics including the poet and "Beowulf" translator Seamus Heaney. Michael D. C. Drout called it the
The dragon (Beowulf) northern literature there are only two that are significant ... we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane." Furthermore, Tolkien believes the "Beowulf" poet emphasizes the monsters Beowulf fights in the poem and claims the dragon is as much of a plot device as anything. Tolkien expands on "Beowulf"'s dragon in his own fiction, which indicates the lasting impact of the "Beowulf" poem. Within the plot structure, however, the dragon functions differently in "Beowulf" than in Tolkien's fiction. The dragon fight ends "Beowulf", while Tolkien uses the dragon motif (and the dragon's love for treasure) to