[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Tolkien delivered a lecture about Gawain and the Green Knight and another on translating Beowulf. He was an Oxford professor for many years, teaching mainly Anglo-Saxon and English Literature. In his valedictory address, which was typically delivered just as he was about to resign his Chair, he criticised the division of English Language and English Literature; and suggested that it would be more sensible to study both as a single subject.

The Professor also worked on the Oxford English Dictionary and performed a lot of other philological work, although I'm unfamiliar with most of his academic writing. The languages he spoke included Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Gothic, Spanish and Welsh, on which latter language he delivered another lecture, in which he said that no philologist of English was worthy of the name who wasn't conversant with the Welsh tongue.

Altogether I'm given to wonder how he found the time to write his fiction, although the fact that he never owned a television set probably had something to do with it.