What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic subject at Oxford when he became a professor at Merton College?

J.R.R. Tolkien became a professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford’s Merton College.

He held the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. The position followed his earlier academic work at Leeds and Oxford, where he taught and researched the history and structure of English and related languages.

Tolkien’s professional scholarship focused especially on medieval texts. He was an expert in Old and Middle English, Old Norse, Welsh, and other linguistic and literary traditions. His fiction grew alongside this scholarship, using invented languages and mythic histories with the care of a historical linguist.

The title is sometimes shortened in summaries to “English,” but the formal subject was English Language and Literature. Tolkien’s academic career also included the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, which he held from 1925 to 1945.