Which university did J.R.R. Tolkien attend as an undergraduate before becoming an Oxford professor?

J.R.R. Tolkien attended the University of Oxford as an undergraduate before becoming an Oxford professor.

He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, beginning in 1911. His initial course was Classics, but he later changed to the English Language and Literature course. Tolkien graduated with first-class honours in 1915, an achievement that reflected his exceptional interest in languages and historical texts.

After serving in the British Army during the First World War, Tolkien pursued an academic career. He taught at the University of Leeds before returning to Oxford. He became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in 1925, and later held the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature from 1945 until his retirement in 1959.

Tolkien’s Oxford career strongly influenced his writing life. The university’s libraries, scholarly communities, and medieval studies environment supported his research, while groups such as the Inklings provided a setting where he could discuss works in progress with C. S. Lewis and others.