What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic subject at Oxford when he changed from classics to English?

J.R.R. Tolkien changed from classics to English Language and Literature while studying at Oxford. He entered Exeter College in 1911 and initially studied classics, but switched to the English course in 1913, where he focused on language and medieval literature.

His Oxford education gave him detailed knowledge of Old and Middle English, Norse literature, Welsh traditions, and Germanic languages. Those studies informed both his scholarship and his invented languages, names, poems, and legends. His interest in language was not separate from his fiction; it was one of the foundations of his creative method.

Tolkien later became an Oxford professor, first holding the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon and then the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature. His career therefore connected the subject he studied with the subject he taught.