J.R.R. Tolkien held the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford.
He became Merton Professor in 1945 and remained at the college until his retirement in 1959. The position followed his earlier academic work at the University of Leeds and his tenure as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. Tolkien’s academic career focused heavily on language, medieval literature, and philology, subjects that also shaped the invented languages and histories of his fiction.
The title is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s earlier Oxford professorship. His Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship was associated with Anglo-Saxon, while the later Merton chair covered English Language and Literature more broadly.