Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics

by J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R Tolkien er einn þekktasti rithöfundur heims eins og vinsældir skáldverka hans um Hringadróttinssögu og Hobbitann eru til vitnis um. En Tolkien var einnig mikilvirkur fræðimaður á sviði norðurevrópskra miðaldabókmennta, þ.m.t. hins íslenska bókmenntaarfs.

Í þessari bók fá lesendur að kynnast fræðilegri skarpsskyggni þessa margrómaða höfundar. Hann beitir hárbeittu stílvopni sínu til að leiða fram nauðsyn þess að taka hið forna kvæði Bjólfskviðu til nýrrar skoðunar – lesa það upp á nýtt.

Genres: Classics, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Essays, Literature, Criticism, Poetry

53 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.

Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.

Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.

Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.

Reviews

[Guðrún Gunnarsdóttir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mjög ahugavert en kannski ekki beiiiint skemmtilegt. Hafði eiginlega meira gaman að innganginum og skýringunum sem tengdu saman Bjólfskviðu og Middle Earth… en samt sem áður áhugaverður fyrirlestur hjá Tolkien okkar🤌

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars but only for people interested in either Beowulf, Tolkien, or Bilbo (if you read it in his voice, this essay is quite endearing).

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the best literary essay ever published. Here, the author of the Lord of the Rings takes aim at scholars who would dismiss the literary merit of the greatest poem published between the fall of Rome and the Thirteenth Century because (dear me!) there are monsters in it. It is a wonderful (if at times dense) reflection on the importance of such supernatural elements in heroic tales.

Could be read in tandem with Matt Kaplan's most excellent Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite -- on the science of monsters.

[Thordur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in Icelandic. Tolkien wrote an essay in the 1930´s about Bjólfskviða which belongs to the Nordic literature. Tolkien actually never came to Iceland but despite that he did have the ability to read Icelandic fluently. From this source Bjólfskviða he was most likely having inspiration to write the Lord of the Rings. Still Bjólfskviða is written as poetry about a viking time bravery and fights with dragons.

Ég las þetta lærdómsrit á einu kvöldi eða svo. Bókin er 104 bls hvað varðar lesmál, þar af er góður inngangur skrifaður af Ármanni Jakobssyni. Ritgerð Tolkiens um Bjólfskviðu er hins vegar í þyngri kantinum og gott teldi ég fyrir lesandann að vera búinn að lesa Bjólfskviðu rétt áður en farið er útí að að lesa þessa bók.

[Freddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Only read the title essay since I don't actually have the book).

An excellently argued case that picks apart common criticism of 'Beowulf' - although I don't completely agree with Tolkien's POV, I do see more of the beauty of the poem than I did on a first read of it. As well as being a cohesive essay, the prose of it is so beautiful, and you can tell how much Tolkien loves the poem:

"In its simplest terms it is a contrasted description of two moments in a great life, rising and setting; an elaboration of the ancient and intensely moving contrast between youth and age, first achievement and final death."

[J.P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Monsters and the Critics," as Drout argues, is revolutionary in its insight and critical perception of the values of fairy-esq elements embedded within the tale of Beowulf, yet–despite it's innovation as a literary essay–Drout also establishes that Tolkien's work has "also damaged Beowulf criticism, because it has been used as an excuse to avoid studying anything in Beowulf but the monsters, and Tolkien would have been, I think, very troubled by this." Although I agree with Tolkien that Beowulf should be understood as a sophisticated work of art that uses its fairy-tale monsters to convey a surprisingly modern and relevant worldview about the ubiquity of evil and the need to confront it, "The Monsters and the Critics" continues the cycle in which Beowulf and the study of it is studied through a singular lens.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Beowulf essay to rule them all...

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read Beowulf the monsters and the critics and I really loved it. I don't know that Tolkien could make that many references to dragons. I have read Beowulf myself and I kinda enjoyed the poem. Loved to read his views on it.

[Daniels' Kids · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good book to read if you've ever read Beowulf. And it's one more book you can check off your Tolkien list.

[Nate Ufford · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a scholarly look at Beowulf and how it should be read, thought about, and studied.
If you are interested in Beowulf, literary analysis, or the scholarly side of JRR Tolkien, definitely read it.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, but good points

[Elen Lebet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was this the best essay I ever read or what? 🤯

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review only covers the 1936 edition, which contained only this one lecture. It was given by an academic, to academics - have your facing-page translation of the poem handy, unless you already read Old English; also have your Latin dictionary and classical mythology references standing by.

This is the original lecture that Tolkien gave to the British Academy about the effect of Beowulf on English literature through history, but especially in the 19th Century. His main focus is on how the critics never seemed to look at Beowulf as a poem; instead focusing on whether it was historical or mythical, pagan or Christian. He analyses the poem as a poem, and why the poet was successful at his craft. He points out quite a bit of stuff previous critics have overlooked in their various analyses, and calls them out on it, especially their attitude towards the mythological elements - the monsters.

There are Tolkien's notes at the end of the lecture, about various references and previous (to 1936) editions of the poem.

This lecture became an enormous influence on future editions and translations of Beowulf, and is still a great influence on scholarship of the poem to this day - Google "impact of Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics" to see what I mean, if you're curious. Be prepared to read all day.

Or you could read a more recent addition that has the translations included. But it was fun to read the original transcript published by the Oxford University Press. I enjoyed reading it, but it's dense enough that it took a while to get all the way through a mere 53 pages. I also enjoyed his excursions into humor, of the dry academic sort, but they made me chuckle.

[Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brief monograph was the first external work of scholarship I read by JRR Tolkien. What a master thinker and writer he was! It is my understanding that this work led to the "resurrection" of scholarship for Beowulf and it's almost universal appearance in literature texts today. A marvelous, though a bit dense, read. The date for my reading this monograph is pretty accurate for the year, but the month and day are purely random.

Tolkien was a professor of Old English at Oxford and it is largely through this monograph that Beowulf has come to the prominence it currently enjoys.

It's a dense read and I can well imagine falling asleep in one of his classes, but his insights into poetry, myth, and imagination are well worth the effort.

[Myrto Charalambous · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very influential critical article on the beautiful medieval poem, Beowulf. This was an interesting read, which I enjoyed. Undeniably, this was one of the first significant essays written on Beowulf that opened doors to later critics for new ways of interpreting this text. I believe that this is why I found Tolkien’s essay to be more explorative rather than argumentative. Even though, later arguments by critics like Andy Orchard and Kathryn Powell might offer, for me at least, even stronger ways of approaching this text — hence the reason why I’ve given this a 4-star rating — I appreciate its value as the first and, I dare say, most influential work on Beowulf.

[Glorious · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uh. I understood about half of this lecture. I'll come back after I've mastered Old English and read The Aeneid. But I feel like I definitely have a deeper appreciation of the work as "an echo of an echo". I found it pretty illuminating that Tolkien argued that "it is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant than this imaginary poem of a great king's fall." And he got to the heart of myth itself; "myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected." Fascinating, and brilliant.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have never read Beowulf it would be a complete waste to even attempt reading this. As it is I can understand somewhat all the points he is making even though I don't have the background of those critics that he is arguing against. The references he makes are difficult and I'm confident if I had an understanding of all those things he does reference the overall effect would be better and my understanding greatly improved.

[Nicholas Huff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolkien, you have a point to make, you always take the long way round. The Appendix and Notes of this lecture challenge the body of the text in length. It is an important work in Beowulf scholarship that refocused study on Beowulf's literary merits rather than its use as historical text.







Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics [Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture], by J.R.R. Tolkien, Read 25 November 1936.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting lecture, but perhaps addressing issues which are no longer relevant. However, it was an excellent short introduction to a great many themes and aspects of the poem.

[sch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun. Hear-hear for readable scholarship. Skipped the appendices.

[Katharina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings much better now!

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolkien's translation of Beowulf is an enlightening read. As I read, I caught glimpses of similar vocabulary used in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting essay about Beowulf written by an expert connoisseur of Old English and ancient Anglo-Saxon literature.