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Tolkien's Academic MASTERPIECE: "The Monsters and the Critics" (A Summary and Guide)

Gavin the Medievalist

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Tolkien's landmark essay, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," not only transformed Beowulf scholarship, but even today serves as a model for how we can approach literature from another time and place. In this video, I summarize Tolkien's essay by laying out what I think are some of the main takeaways from his greatest achievement in Beowulf studies, which also (helpfully) serves as an entry point to the study and appreciation of the medieval poem.

Thank you to all who have joined the channel--I'm excited for this to become an inclusive place for anyone who wants to learn more about medieval literature.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:24 Beowulf and the Critics
05:02 Tolkien and the Monsters
15:50 The Christian Poet and the Pagan Past
20:50 A Brief Reflection

Thanks for watching! See my recent video on Tolkien's translation of Beowulf: Is Tolkien's Beowulf ANY GOOD? A Review by...

Affiliate Link Disclaimer: All of the following links are Amazon associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This doesn't cost you anything extra, but they help me keep making more content like this. Thanks for your support!

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays by J.R.R. Tolkien: https://amzn.to/46sznuS

J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary: https://amzn.to/3JX9Qm1

Klaeber’s Beowulf, Fourth Edition: https://amzn.to/4fQqlfA

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney: https://amzn.to/4mxBlB0

(My favorite edition) Beowulf, 2nd Edition by R.M Liuzza: https://amzn.to/45MMcj8

#tolkien #beowulf #medievaltales #literature #oldenglish #booktube #englishmajor #beowulftranslation #epicpoetry #medieval

20 Comments

@frankydclc 1 year ago

only four uploads and they’re four of the best introductory level resources on beowulf i’ve ever seen. absolute king.

@atropaeverwood2003 1 year ago

A rare win by the youtube algorithm

@michaelhorning6014 1 year ago

Hating Beowulf because it's not the Iliad is like the people who hate raisins because they're not chocolate chips.

@Hananotaka 1 year ago

The conclusion of “Monsters and the Critics” is the most beautiful and moving passage I’ve ever read in academic writing.

@matthewwallhead5952 1 year ago (edited)

Tolkien's analogy with the Tower that uses bricks from a previous building reminded me of Schliemann's archaeology. Schliemann was so obsessed with digging down to the time of the Trojan Wars he destroyed much of the beautiful finds above it. So many want to know the ancient origins of Beowulf they fail to appreciate it as a Christian poem.

@halmycroft194 1 year ago

Gavin (Gawain) is a good name for a medievalist. Your channel seems quite new, I've very much enjoyed your work so far and look forward to more.

@elikuzma8773 7 months ago

"until the dragon comes" might be the hardest academic diss I've ever heard

@samuelleask1132 7 months ago

I’m so glad this channel exists

@AmeshaSpentaArmaiti 1 year ago

You got me to buy Tolkiens beowulf, I've been having fun jumping between the story and the commentaries.

@fr.jeremiahcaughran6191 1 year ago

Strangely enough, I’ve been dwelling a bit on CS Lewis’ Meditation in a Toolshed in which he speaks about the experience of looking at a beam of light in a dark tool shed and looking along that same beam of light and what you learn from each posture. His point in the essay is that too many critics act as though looking at the beam is all that matters, always discounting those who look along the beam to discover what that beam reveals to them. That is what it sounds like the old Beowulf critics were doing. All they could do was look at the beam of light that Beowulf was and critique it because it wasn’t the beam of light they wanted, but Tolkien looked along the beam and saw a beauty and depth that the others refused to see because they didn’t want to take it on its own terms. Tolkien looked along it and discovered what they all missed because they wouldn’t have it as it was. And because Tolkien did that looking upon he could step to the side and tell us all about it. The little story about the tower made this connection jump out to me. Why did the tower builder use all these old stones to build his tower? So he could see the ocean from the top, but all the critics missed that because they never bothered to enter into the tower and go to the top and see the view that it gave.

@SistopRavnenes 6 months ago

Absolute wonderful explanation, great research, fantastic work!

@joemason6319 1 year ago

"It it necessary that his final foe should be not some Swedish prince, or treacherous friend, but a dragon: a thing made by the imagination for just such a purpose." That's exactly the argument DC used for creating a new dumb brute of a villain for the Death of Superman in the 90's, instead of having him finally fall to the schemes of Lex Luthor or Brainiac. They knew what they were doing!

@thebiblepriest4950 1 year ago

J.R.R. Tolkien assisted in the translation of the Jerusalem Bible in the 1960s (he is named alongside some of my teachers in the credits). I would say that Tolkien affected/reflected the movement in Biblical scholarship to RESPECT THE TEXT. Before Tolkien's time, scholars rewrote the text to fit their preconceptions; since Tolkien's time, scholarship has respected the text AS IT STANDS. Of course, sometimes there are lacunae that have to be filled, like the words of Beowulf that were burned off the page; and often we have to read between the lines to find what the ancient authors meant. But the poem is on the page. We are here to listen and learn.

@gregcampwriter 1 year ago

Beowulf's core message is that struggles are always with us. No victory is final. In each generation, we have to stand up to address the times we are given--see Gandalf's remarks to Frodo. The poem also reminds us that some fights require everyone of good will to win.

@39MercFlathead 1 year ago

I first read Beowulf in 1962 as a teenager, then again in a university English literature class. I found the Volsung sagas more interesting and can't recall how many times I've read the Saga of Burnt Njal. But your videos on Beowulf have me interested again. Perhaps because I am in my 80th year, appreciation of mortality acheives more clarity. I haven't read the Tolkien translation, but the small samples you read have peaked my interest. The more Germanic SOV grammatical construction gave me more of a sense of listening in a mead hall, although that would probably also be anachronistic for the period of the poet. I write stories in English and Spanish here in Mexico and marvel at the conundrums of translation frequently.

@davida.m.wilensky8182 1 year ago

The tower metaphor kinda reminds me about literary scholar Robert Alter's complaint about his fellow academics studying the Hebrew Bible as anything other than literature

@Peter-oh3hc 1 year ago

What a great channel.
I think Edith Hamilton talking about Norse mythology said it was the only one where the gods new they would ultimately fail, but it was the struggle that mattered

@InquirywithHelena 1 year ago

You’re a delight to listen to! I haven’t read any version of Beowulf– all I remember is a version of the story in some childhood book but I found it compelling. I am a Tolkien fan but I’m even more a fan of just very intelligent articulate eloquent exposition. Thank you, keep it up!

@WalterLiddy 1 year ago

This helped me a lot to understand more why Tolkien was so opposed to allegory. Thanks for the insights.

@theblackrose3130 8 months ago (edited)

Interesting that his metaphor is what in Archaeology we call spolia. And as someone who studied archaeology and works in museums and heritage I love buildings that use spolia! Gives a lot of character and interest, so many amazing buildings contain spolia. (might be worth noting the most important piece of spolia ever found was the Rosetta stone itself which perhaps doesn't help Tolkien's argument 😂.)