 At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated "Beowulf" for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of "Beowulf" was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem.Where "Beowulf" does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements.In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf