What was the name of Tolkien’s academic subject at Oxford University?

J.R.R. Tolkien studied English language and literature at Oxford University. His undergraduate education focused on English, including language, literature, and the older forms of the language that shaped his later scholarship.

He first entered Exeter College in 1911. During the First World War, his studies were interrupted by military service, but he returned to complete his degree. Tolkien’s interest in languages was especially strong: he studied Old English, Middle English, Welsh, and other linguistic traditions, combining philology with literary interpretation.

A common mix-up is to describe Tolkien simply as a history student or a classics scholar. He had broad interests, and classical and medieval material influenced him, but his Oxford degree and academic career belonged to English studies. His professional work eventually led him to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon and the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature.