What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s official Oxford professorship from 1925 to 1945?

J.R.R. Tolkien held the title Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945. The chair was based at Pembroke College, where Tolkien taught Old English language and literature.

His work in this position established him as a leading scholar of Anglo-Saxon studies. He taught texts such as Beowulf and published influential research on Old English literature. His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” helped change how the poem was understood by emphasizing its artistic structure rather than treating it only as historical evidence.

Tolkien later became the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, serving from 1945 to 1959. That later chair is a frequent source of confusion. The Rawlinson and Bosworth title specifically identifies his earlier Oxford professorship and his specialization in Anglo-Saxon language and literature.