Which Oxford university position did J.R.R. Tolkien hold from 1925 to 1945?

From 1925 to 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.

The professorship placed Tolkien at the centre of Old English scholarship. His teaching and research covered language, literature and medieval texts, including the epic poem Beowulf. His later public reputation as a novelist can obscure how distinguished he was as a philologist before The Lord of the Rings appeared.

In 1945 Tolkien moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held until his retirement in 1959. The two Oxford posts are therefore easy to mix up, especially because both were major stages of his academic career.

The title itself reflects older terminology: “Anglo-Saxon” was commonly used for the study of Old English and its literature. Tolkien’s scholarship in that field helped shape modern approaches to Beowulf.