What was C.S. Lewis's academic field at Oxford before his Cambridge appointment?

C.S. Lewis's academic field at Oxford before his Cambridge appointment was English literature.

Lewis became a fellow and tutor in English at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1925. His professional work there centered on literature, although his education and intellectual interests also included classical languages, philosophy, theology, and medieval history. Oxford was where he built his reputation as a scholar and teacher before becoming widely famous as an author.

His influential academic books include The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama, published in 1954. These works examine literary traditions and demonstrate Lewis's expertise in historical periods well beyond children's fantasy.

Lewis's later Cambridge chair was also in English literature, specifically Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Readers sometimes identify him primarily as a Christian writer or creator of Narnia, but his university career was formally grounded in literary scholarship. His fiction and apologetics grew alongside, rather than replacing, that academic vocation.