English and Related Literature
What will I study?
Our English degree offers exceptional flexibility and choice, providing a comprehensive overview of literary history and criticism.
It encourages you to explore the subjects that interest you most by offering you space to shape your degree from your first year. We offer a breathtaking choice of modules with an unsurpassed geographical and linguistic range. With core and optional modules covering literature from classical antiquity to the 21st century, there is something for everyone, including creative writing, drama, fiction, film, and poetry.
Through small-group teaching, we will support you in becoming an original researcher right from the start, meaning that you will develop independent critical thinking skills invaluable for the workplace and for postgraduate study. Our unique writing provision, designed and taught by specialist tutors, forms a practical spine for the degree, preparing you to communicate clearly and confidently on a rich variety of topics to any audience.
Overview
Year 1: You will acquire a broad understanding of literary history through co-ordinated modules that introduce a range of texts and a variety of critical approaches: Approaches to Literature I: Writing Modernity (Autumn) & Approaches to Literature II: Other Worlds (Spring) and A World of Literature I: Classics and Cultural Translations (Autumn) & A World of Literature II: Empire and Aftermaths (Spring).You will also begin to develop research and writing skills appropriate to the study of literature at university in Key Concepts: An Introduction to Genre, Theory, and Writing. In your final term, you will choose from our exciting Topic Modules, working collaboratively to explore a text or idea.
Year 2: You will further your understanding of literature’s rich heritage, choosing from our comprehensive period-specific Intermediate Option Modules. You will also have the opportunity to engage with a literary tradition from outside English in our World Literature options (either in translation or with some language study, if you prefer). Our innovative Writing Now and Research Now modules will help you to continue to develop your critical inquiry and writing skills.
Year 3: Building on the skills and interests you have developed throughout your degree, you will choose from an exciting, wide-ranging list of experimental Advanced Option Modules on a diverse set of topics, allowing you to tailor the final year entirely to your own interests and passions. You will also undertake independent research, supported by an expert supervisor, towards The Dissertation, which will focus on a topic of your choosing. This includes the option to undertake a Dissertation with Creative Practice, which might involve producing a portfolio of creative writing; a translation project; a critical edition of a text; a print publication in collaboration with Thin Ice Press; or an external engagement project. This capstone project is a wonderful opportunity to display your skills in detailed research, elegant writing, and rigorous argument.
Topic Modules
Topic Modules are a set of exciting, hands-on, and tightly focused modules that run in the Summer Term of your first year.
They act as an important pivot point between the research skills developed throughout the year and practical skills that will make you more employable after your degree. Topic modules veer from the beaten path into innovative and specialised areas of research, while also helping you to connect your academic skills with the tools you will use in any career.
Recent offerings have included:
Love and Desire in the Middle Ages
NOW Now: Intersectional Feminisms from the 1960s to the Present
Intermediate Option Modules
Intermediate Option Modules cover key topics, texts, and genres of a given literary period.
Building on the introduction to different literary periods offered in the first year, Intermediate Option Modules allow you to deepen your understanding of the relationship between literary works and the cultural, historical, and political contexts in which they were produced.
The Shock of the New: Medieval Literature
Victorians: British Literature, 1832-1901
Age of Extremes: Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature
American Literature: From the First World War to the End of Empire
World Literature modules
World Literature Modules form a crucial part of our commitment to an international curriculum. They run in the Spring semester of your second year.
Some are taught entirely in translation; others partly in the original language. The choice is yours, and will be governed by your experience and interests.
An Introduction to Greek and Latin Literatures
Eros: the Literature and Philosophy of Love
The Golden Age of Latin Literature
The Literature of Hispanic America
Medieval Arabic and Persian Global Literature
Advanced Option modules
Advanced Option Modules are innovative modules that reflect the wide-ranging and cutting-edge research expertise of the Department.
You can shape your final year based on your own interests, whether honing in on the work of a single writer or exploring a new field of study.
The Body in Modern American Literature and Culture
British Science Fiction and Fantasy
Creative Writing - Contemporary Practice
Decoronial Writing:Pandemics, Public Health, Prose
From Tennyson to Tolkien: The Middle Ages & Modern Literature from 1843 - 1940
Green Romanticism: Nature, Ecology, Calamity
The Life and Afterlife of Boccaccio's Decameron: Text Image Film
Performing the Georgian World: 18th Century Drama and Theatre
Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Romance and Popular Fiction
Renaissance Poetry: identity, materiality, voice
So Funny it Hurts: Irish Comic Fiction
Songwriting: Lyrics as Literature
Stories with Pictures: Narrative in Visual Media
Villains of the Romantic Gothic
The Writer's Notebook: A Prose Fiction Workshop
Note: This information reflects our current course structure. We, and the departments we share courses with, keep our courses under review and we may make changes in the future.