What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic specialty at Oxford before 1945?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic specialty at Oxford before 1945 was Anglo-Saxon, also known as Old English.

In 1925 Tolkien became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. His work involved the language and literature of early medieval England, including the study of texts such as Beowulf. This expertise informed his understanding of Germanic languages, heroic legends, riddles, and the poetic traditions that influenced his fiction.

Tolkien’s scholarship did not simply provide source material for Middle-earth; it shaped his ideas about how stories and languages develop. His famous 1936 lecture on Beowulf argued that the poem should be appreciated as a work of art, not merely mined for historical information. In 1945 he moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, broadening the formal scope of his Oxford teaching.