TOLKIEN’S DEFENSE OF DRAGONS. The HOBBIT seems to be a children’s book in part because one of the main actions is the killing of the dragon Smaug. Tolkien’s 1936 lecture on BEOWULF was pathbreaking because he argued that BEOWULF was great literature in addition to being an interesting historical document. Part of the lecture (which is titled “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”) attacked one line of criticism of BEOWULF which argued that the poem was flawed because the subject was unworthy. He quotes a leading critic: “The fault of Beowulf is that there is nothing much in the story. The hero is occupied in killing monsters, like Hercules or Theseus…. ” The critics acknowledge the poetic talent of the author of BEOWULF, but, says Tolkien, “this poetic talent, we are to understand, has all been squandered on an unprofitable theme: as if Milton had recounted the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in noble verse.”
Tolkien answers the critics: “A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination…. Something more significant than a standard hero, a man faced with a foe more evil than any human enemy of house or realm, is before us….It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant than this imaginary poem of a great king’s fall.”
What Tolkien said about the monsters in BEOWULF can also be said about the dragon in THE HOBBIT.