What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s undergraduate degree subject at Oxford after he changed course?

After changing course at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien studied English language and literature.

Tolkien initially enrolled to study Classics at Exeter College, but his interests increasingly focused on languages, historical linguistics, and medieval texts. He changed to the English School, where his studies included Old and Middle English. This academic foundation became central to both his scholarship and his fiction.

His later writing shows the influence of texts such as Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, and medieval poems. Tolkien’s invented languages were also built with the historical development of real languages in mind. Some accounts describe his degree broadly as English, but the fuller subject description is English language and literature.