 Ten years later, however, Tolkien drew upon this work when he gave a lecture "".According to this lecture, the true theme of "Beowulf", namely death and defeat, was being neglected in favour of archaeological and philological disputes on how much of the poem was fictive or true.Beowulf, a prince of the Geats, and his followers set out to help king Hroðgar of the Danes in his fight against the monster Grendel.