Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics most important article ever written about the poem. Scholars of Anglo-Saxon agree that the work was influential, transforming the study of "Beowulf". J. R. R. Tolkien's essay ""Beowulf": The Monsters and the Critics", initially delivered as a lecture in 1936, is regarded as a formative work in modern "Beowulf" studies. 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 argues that rather than being merely extraneous, these elements are key to the narrative and should
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics it down "to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions". Tolkien quotes at length what the scholar W. P. Ker thought of "Beowulf", namely that "there is nothing much in the story", and that "the great beauty, the real value, of "Beowulf" is in its dignity of style". Tolkien notes that Ker's opinion had been a powerful influence in favour of a paradoxical contrast between the poem's supposed defect in speaking of monsters, and (in Tolkien's words) its agreed "dignity, loftiness in converse, and well-wrought finish". Tolkien cites other critics, such as Raymond Wilson Chambers and Ritchie Girvan, who objected to