Although Tolkien is best known for his formative influence on the modern fantasy genre through The Lord of the Rings (though we here at the Silmarillion Writers' Guild clearly think the rest of the legendarium is pretty special too!), his impact on the field of Anglo-Saxon studies was just as noteworthy. His 1936 lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" transformed how the Old English poem Beowulf was read and understood by scholars. It is cited even today in Beowulf scholarship and included in many contemporary volumes of Beowulf criticism for its foundational role in how the field would evolve over the next eight-plus decades.

But for all its importance, "Monsters and the Critics" doesn't tend to be included in volumes of Tolkien's popular works—not entirely unexpected, given that it is an academic (though highly accessible) lecture-turned-essay. In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook gives "Monsters" its due as a work that reveals something of how a people looks back in history and finds they have forgotten what they know.

"Monsters" includes one of my favorite passages from all of Tolkien's writing: an extended metaphor about a man who constructs a tower from old ruins and endures the scrutiny and scorn of his compatriots who wonder why he'd do such a thing—"But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea." Simon makes the case that the sea in this metaphor is the forgotten knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon people: just what lies beyond the shoreless sea alluded to in Beowulf, giving the poem its tone "both poignant and remote" and "weighted with regret."

Of course, fans of Tolkien's work—especially his First Age writings—identify this same sense of nostalgic loss for a distant, partially glimpsed past. And so we see Beleriand in Beowulf.

You can read Simon J. Cook's column "Beleriand in Beowulf" here.

(On the subject of Tolkien's inspirations, be sure to check out our new challenge Dip the Ladle, and remember that you can reply to this email to request a prompt.)