Tolkien as a Student

[Anguirel]

He read Greats (Classics) (didn't he? like Lewis) so in those noble bygone days that means doing it properly - pretty much every literary, historical and philosophical classical text going

In theory you do literature (perceived as the 'soft' stuff) for Mods, ie the first two of four years, and the rest for Greats afterwards (though it's a lot more flexible/diluted/compartmentalised now)

It would be interesting to know what classical texts he especially liked reading. There's a good book on CS Lewis' lifelong engagement with/translation of the Aeneid, inc. Oxford etc (edited by the creepy Walter Hooper I think), which you might find useful for comparison perhaps?

EDIT: I also hear, more importantly, that he had an awesome fistfight with FR Leavis in Balliol Quad. Squatter will tell you all about it if you ask him

ANOTHER EDIT: Wiki informs me he did Mods but then got bored and switched to the nascent English school, presumably to get at all those juicy Norse vowel changes...