Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics
Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics ( German: The monsters and their critics ) was a lecture given by JRR Tolkien held in 1936 on the literary criticism on the Old English epic poem Beowulf. The manuscript was first published in the same year in the Proceedings of the British Academy, and has since been widely reproduced in various collections, including The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, a 1983, edited by Christopher Tolkien collection of Tolkien's academic essays.
The essay is regarded as a seminal work in the modern Beowulf research. In his lecture, Tolkien speaks out against the critics who reviewed the fantastic elements of the poem (such as Grendel and the dragon ) play down so that they can consider Beowulf solely as a source for Anglo-Saxon history research. Tolkien argued that these fictional elements are by no means inconsequential, but should serve as key elements of the story and are therefore the focus of the research. He produced so that an increased observance of previously neglected literary qualities of the epic and led to further that one must understand it as a work of art, not as a historical document. Later literary critic who had opinion on this point Tolkien have quoted him routinely, in order to strengthen their own positions.
The essay is still a common source for students and scientists studying Beowulf and was praised by Seamus Heaney in the introduction to his translation of the poem. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson call him in her Beowulf, An Edition (1998) " the most influential literary criticism of the poem that was ever written ( the most influential literary criticism of the poem ever written ) ". The paper also sheds light on many of Tolkien's ideas about literature and serves as a resource for those who study his writings intense.
The lecture was part of a longer series, which exists in two manuscript versions, which were published together in 2002 as Beowulf and the Critics by Michael DC Drout.
Expenditure ( selection)
- JRR Tolkien: Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. In: Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 22, 1936, pp. 245-295 (online).
- J. R. R. Tolkien: The Monsters and the Critics. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. George Allen & Unwin, London 1983, ISBN 0-0480-9019-0.
- Lewis E. Nicholson ( ed.): An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame 1963, ISBN 0-268-00006-9.
- JRR Tolkien: Beowulf: The monsters and their critics. In: J. R. R. Tolkien: Good dragons are rare. Three essays. Translated from English by Wolfgang Krege. Klett- Cotta, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-608-93064-7, pp. 141-214.