What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first full-time academic post at Oxford?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first full-time academic professorship at Oxford was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon. He held the chair from 1925 until 1945.

The position placed Tolkien at the center of Oxford’s study of Old English language and literature. His teaching and research included Old English texts, Germanic philology, and medieval literary traditions. His later 1936 lecture on Beowulf helped redirect critical attention toward the poem’s literary structure and monsters.

In 1945 Tolkien moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held until his retirement in 1959. The two chairs are sometimes confused because both belonged to his Oxford career. His academic expertise was not separate from his fiction: the languages, legends, and historical habits he studied became foundations for the invented histories of Middle-earth.