What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic subject at the University of Leeds from 1920 to 1925?

At the University of Leeds, J.R.R. Tolkien taught English language from 1920 to 1925. He joined Leeds as a reader and later became a professor before returning to Oxford in 1925.

His Leeds years were academically productive. Tolkien worked with E.V. Gordon on an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925. The edition became an important contribution to Middle English scholarship and reflected Tolkien’s close attention to language, metre, and textual detail.

Tolkien also helped develop the study of Old and Middle English at Leeds. His teaching and research there prepared him for the Oxford chair in Anglo-Saxon that he took in 1925.

The University of Leeds is sometimes overlooked because Tolkien spent much longer at Oxford. However, Leeds was the setting for an important phase of his early professional career, and some of his teaching materials and scholarly collaborations from that period connect directly with his later literary work.