Which Cambridge university position did C.S. Lewis receive in 1954?

In 1954, C.S. Lewis became Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge.

The appointment marked Lewis’s move from Oxford to Cambridge, where he held the chair until his death in 1963. His academic work had long focused on English literature, especially medieval and Renaissance texts, so the professorship matched the field in which he had built his scholarly reputation.

Lewis was more widely known to the public as a novelist and Christian writer, but his academic career was substantial. His books on literature include The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama, published in 1954.

The title is sometimes shortened to “English professor,” which loses the period specialization that made the post distinctive. It was not a theology chair or a professorship in classical languages, despite Lewis’s interest in Christianity, mythology, and ancient literature.