[dwringer]

Whether "most people ... care about [it as] literature", I'm not sure, but most people in many school districts and universities were at least forced to read Beowulf as part of a standard curriculum, possibly more than once over the years. Isn't the question merely whether they would've cared enough to upvote or comment on the HN posting without seeing "Tolkien" in the headline? Beowulf is part of what one might call literary canon. What constitutes a literary canon is always going to be subject to debate, as it is ultimately subjective at some level. How one is to define "popular" media franchise, "literary" books, or "famous" authors can only pose an even greater challenge in forming any consensus.