In his lecture Tolkien pleaded for the rebuilding of that tower. He declared that although Beowulf is about monsters and a dragon, that does not make it negligible as heroic poetry. ‘A dragon is no idle fancy,’ he told his audience. ‘Even today (despite the critics) you may find men not ignorant of tragic legend and history, who have heard of heroes and indeed seen them, who have yet been caught by the fascination of the worm.’
