Which Oxford academic position did J.R.R. Tolkien hold from 1925?

J.R.R. Tolkien held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925.

Tolkien was appointed Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1925. The position reflected his expertise in Old English language and literature, fields that strongly influenced his creative work. He later became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford in 1945.

His scholarly interests included Beowulf, medieval languages, and the development of English. His 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” helped change how the poem was studied by emphasizing its artistic unity rather than treating it mainly as historical evidence.

Tolkien’s academic career and fiction were closely connected, but the professorship was a real university post, not a literary honor created after his novels became famous.