What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford professorship specifically devoted to from 1945?

From 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford.

Tolkien held the professorship at Merton College until his retirement in 1959. The position followed his earlier Oxford appointment as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, which he held from 1925 to 1945 while working at Pembroke College.

His academic career focused heavily on the history of English, Old English literature, philology, and medieval texts. His scholarship on Beowulf, especially his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” had a major influence on modern Beowulf studies.

It is easy to reduce Tolkien’s academic work to his fiction, but his professional reputation was established before The Lord of the Rings appeared. His knowledge of historical languages and texts shaped the depth, sound patterns, and historical layering of Middle-earth.