Tolkien's love affair with Beowulf started when he was just a young scholar, and it's a good thing he did, because otherwise, we might not have had Gollum or Smaug in our lives. He was fascinated by the way the poem used language to create a sense of atmosphere and mood, and he even tried to recreate that in his own writing. It's like he was trying to channel his inner Beowulf, but with more elves and dwarves!
But what's really cool about Tolkien's essay is that he argues that the monsters in Beowulf are not just mindless beasts, but actually symbolic of the human condition. He says that the monsters represent the fears and anxieties of the human heart, and that's what makes them so compelling. It's like he's saying that the monsters are us, but with more teeth and scales!
