What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford academic title in Anglo-Saxon studies?

J.R.R. Tolkien held the title Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. He occupied the chair from 1925 until 1945.

The position reflected Tolkien’s expertise in Old English language and literature. Before taking it, he taught at the University of Leeds and worked at Oxford. His scholarship included major work on Beowulf, and his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” helped redirect academic attention toward the poem’s literary qualities.

Tolkien later became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, serving from 1945 until 1959. The two professorships are often confused because both were Oxford appointments and because his fiction became more famous than his academic career.

His philological training influenced his fiction deeply. Tolkien often began with the sound and history of a language, then developed peoples, legends, and landscapes around it. His academic work and imaginative writing were therefore closely connected rather than separate careers.