C.S. Lewis became chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University in 1954.
The appointment came after most of Lewis’s academic career had been spent at Oxford. He had taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1925 and became a prominent literary scholar there. His Cambridge chair gave him a formal academic position in the field that best matched his interests in medieval and Renaissance texts.
Lewis’s move to Cambridge did not end his connection with Oxford. He continued to be associated with Oxford intellectual life and remained a member of Magdalen College. The two universities are therefore both central to accounts of his career, but they represent different stages of his academic work.
His Cambridge appointment also shows that Lewis was not solely a popular religious writer or children’s author. Alongside those works, he maintained a serious scholarly career focused on the history and interpretation of English literature.