English Literature

You can also apply to add a placement year or a year abroad to your degree; this would increase the course from three years to four.

The first year will focus on advancing the skills of critical analysis and argument you have already acquired in your education to date. This includes close reading and analysis of texts, such as the awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and of the affective power of language, alongside the introduction of more advanced concepts and theories relating to literature.

In the second year, you will build on the knowledge and skills developed in your first year by broadening the range of literary texts and periods with which you will engage. You will study a substantial number of authors, topics and texts and gain awareness of the range and variety of approaches to literary study.

The final year includes a dissertation on a subject of your choice related to English literature. The dissertation involves guided research on a self-formulated question, the gathering and processing of relevant information and materials, and results in a work of sustained argumentative and analytic power.

The selection of optional modules available on our programme changes from time to time. This is an indicative list, to give you an overview of the different kinds of modules that we have offered in recent years.