Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics writing in "The New Yorker", calls it "a paper that many people regard as not just the finest essay on the poem but one of the finest essays on English literature." She adds that "Tolkien preferred the monsters to the critics." Regina Weinreich, reviewing "The Monsters and the Critics: And Other Essays" in "The New York Times", wrote that the title essay "revolutionized the study of the early English poem "Beowulf," in which a young hero crushes a human-handed monster called Grendel. Against the scorn of critics, Tolkien defends the centrality and seriousness of literary monsters, declaring his own belief
The dragon (Beowulf) trigger a chain of events in "The Hobbit". The "Beowulf" dragon is the earliest example in literature of the typical European dragon and first incidence of a fire-breathing dragon. The "Beowulf" dragon is described with Old English terms such as "draca" (dragon), and "wyrm" (reptile, or serpent), and as a creature with a venomous bite. Also, the "Beowulf" poet created a dragon with specific traits: a nocturnal, treasure-hoarding, inquisitive, vengeful, fire-breathing creature. The fire is likely symbolic of the hellfire of the devil, reminiscent of the monster in the Book of Job. In the Septuagint Bible, Job's monster is characterized