What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic title at Oxford from 1925 to 1945?

From 1925 to 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.

The professorship was based at Pembroke College, Oxford, where Tolkien taught Old English, Middle English, and related subjects. His academic work included philology, the historical study of languages, and the interpretation of medieval texts. This expertise strongly shaped the languages, names, poetry, and literary texture of Middle-earth.

Tolkien later moved to Merton College and became the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, a post he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. The two Oxford professorships are therefore easy to confuse, especially because both involved English language and medieval literature.

His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” helped redirect scholarly attention toward the poem’s artistry and structure, rather than treating it merely as evidence about Germanic history or language.