What was C.S. Lewis’s academic specialty before his Christian apologetics became famous?

C.S. Lewis’s academic specialty was Medieval and Renaissance literature.

Lewis was a literary scholar and university teacher before he became widely known for Christian apologetics and children’s fiction. His academic interests included medieval literature, Renaissance writing, allegory, and the history of English literary imagination. He wrote The Allegory of Love, a major study published in 1936, and A Preface to Paradise Lost, published in 1942.

In 1954, Lewis became the first holder of the chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The chair’s title identifies the field most closely associated with his professional academic work. He had previously taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, since 1925.

Lewis’s scholarly background influenced his other writing. His arguments about imagination, myth, story, and moral experience often drew on long familiarity with older literature. Calling him only a Christian writer misses the academic foundation that preceded and supported his popular books.