What was C.S. Lewis’s academic specialty at Oxford and Cambridge?

C.S. Lewis’s academic specialty at Oxford and Cambridge was English literature.

Lewis was a scholar and teacher of English literature, with particular expertise in medieval and Renaissance writing. His major academic books include The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, published in 1954.

At Oxford, he held a fellowship and teaching position at Magdalen College from 1925 until 1954. He then became a fellow and tutor in English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His scholarship covered literary history, allegory, criticism, and the intellectual background of earlier English texts.

His fiction and apologetics sometimes overshadow his academic work, leading readers to think of him only as a novelist or religious writer. Lewis’s literary training strongly influenced his imaginative writing, including his use of myth, allegory, medieval cosmology, and older narrative forms.