English Literature BA

2025-26 entry
School of English

Explore the full range of literary arts from Old English to the 21st century. You’ll have the opportunity to study modules that encompass film, theatre and creative writing, as well as poetry and prose, and to engage with diverse texts from all over the world, both in English and in translation.

Key details

Explore this course:

    Course description

    Why study this course?

    Develop essential skills

    Adopt creative and experimental approaches to important literary topics that can apply to jobs across many industries.

    Supporting professional development

    A variety of teaching and assessment methods that stimulate learning and creativity, supporting diverse students and encouraging professional development.

    Outside lectures

    Join our student-led volunteering project English in the City and inspire the next generation to develop a love of literature.

    Professor Cathy Shrank, School of English

    Cultivate a deep understanding and a true love of literature and creative arts, as you explore the breadth, depth and history of English.

    Throughout your degree you’ll be engaged in focused, in-depth study with tutors who are experts in their field. Choose from a wide range of periods, authors, genres and literary movements, whilst following a chronological thread beginning with a study of Renaissance and leading you through to the present day.

    To these core subject areas you can add optional modules, choosing to immerse yourself in the work of single authors, specific genres or literary movements.

    From the very first semester we'll support you to develop as a scholar. You’ll begin with degree-level study skills, and build up to complex critical and theoretical approaches. Together, we’ll unlock the study of English literary cultures in all their forms and so contribute to our world-renowned research.

    A small group of students engaged in a lecture

    Modules

    Over the course of each academic year at ºù«Ӱҵ, you will need to study modules that equate to the value of 120 credits. Some of these credits will be taken up by our core modules, which are designed to give you the breadth of knowledge and ways of thinking necessary to the degree being awarded.

    For your remaining credits, you will be able to choose from an extensive range of optional modules, allowing you to shape your degree to the topics that interest you.

    A selection of modules are available each year - some examples are below. There may be changes before you start your course. From May of the year of entry, formal programme regulations will be available in our Programme Regulations Finder.

    Title: English Literature BA course structure
    UCAS code: Q306
    Years: 2022, 2023
    First year

    In your first year, all students take the core module Renaissance to Revolution worth 40 credits. The remaining 80 credits can be used on modules from the list of optional English modules listed below, all 20 credits.

    Core modules:

    Renaissance to Revolution

    This module surveys the poetry and prose from the early modern period in England, i.e., that written between the beginnings of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century. We will look at different genres, from court complaint to sonnets, prose fiction, erotic verse, restoration drama and the works of writers such as Donne, Herbert, Spenser, Marlowe, Dyrden, Milton and Pope. The texts studied will be related to critical methods that help us understand the relationships between literature and the culture, society, and politics of the period in which it was produced.

    40 credits

    Optional modules:

    Early Englishes

    Early Englishes works backward over a whole millennium of English, 1600 to 600. Each week's lectures and seminar focus on one century and one text representative of that century (for example, Beowulf and Piers Plowman). We will use a variety of techniques , literary, linguistic, anthropological, cultural historical, to analyse each text, thereby opening up discussion of the issues that preoccupied the English of the time, from glorious monster-slaying to the slow surrender of pagan belief to terror at the imminent arrival of Antichrist and on to the first expressions of love and desire. Texts will initially be studied in translation so no prior knowledge of Old or Middle English is necessary, but students will also be given the opportunity to examine texts in the original language.

    20 credits
    Foundations in Literary Study: Biblical and Classical Sources in English Literature

    This module provides foundational knowledge about the treatment of Biblical and Classical sources in English Literature. It is an important unit for the study of literature and the Humanities, preparing students for work at higher levels. Typically a Biblical or Classical source and a literary text will be discussed together, to expose a range of meanings and to prepare participants for their own research about both the Bible and Classical material as literature and the treatment of Bible and Classical material in Literature. It will also prepare students for independent research. It is recommended that all students of English take this module.

    20 credits
    Contemporary Literature

    This module introduces students to a diverse range of texts in English (prose, poetry, and film) with a focus on texts published since 2000. Texts will be chosen to provoke thinking and debate on urgent and controversial topics that might include: globalisation and neoliberalism; ecology and animal lives; artificial intelligence and the posthuman; political activism and social justice; migration and displacement; state violence and armed conflict. We will discuss formally and conceptually challenging works, raise ethical and philosophical questions and begin to discover how current critical and theoretical approaches can help us to engage with contemporary texts.

    20 credits
    Studying Theatre: A History of Dramatic Texts in Performance

    Covering classical, contemporary and popular texts, Studying Theatre; A History of Dramatic Text in Performance aims to turn an interest in theatre and theatre-going into a more thorough appreciation of the ways in which playwriting, acting, design and performance have shaped theatre's development. Each week students will study a particular play and the historical context that informed its first performances and its theatrical afterlife. The course emphasis is on theatre as a social practice and practical discipline. Seminars and lectures will focus on the play in performance, and the processes that underlie production. Students do not need previous knowledge or experience, but should be prepared to try some new approaches to texts, for example through practical workshops.

    20 credits
    Darwin, Marx, Freud

    This course is structured around the writings of Darwin, Marx, Freud. We will consider selections from all three philosophers' writings, such as, for example, Darwin's The Origin of Species; cover key concepts from Marx's work—commodity fetishism; alienation—and investigate Freud's philosophy of the subject through selected readings from his writings. We will dismantle cultural prejudice and engage with, and in, revolutionary thinking. This course will prepare you for modules like Critical and Literary Thought but, most importantly, it will help you become critical, potentially revolutionary, thinkers.

    20 credits
    Exploring Literary Language

    This module explores the language of literary texts. We will look at how different literary styles create particular effects and describe these styles and effects using linguistics. The course aims to provide students interested in English literature with a practical introduction to language, and to provide students interested in language with experience of applying linguistic analysis to literary texts. The emphasis is on a hands-on approach, and topics covered will include sentence structure, register, narrative structure, conversation analysis (with reference to drama and dialogue) and point of view in narrative fiction. The texts studied will be predominantly literary and twentieth century, and will include extracts from novels, plays, poetry and short stories.

    20 credits
    Hybrid Forms? Comedy and Tragedy

    This module gives you the opportunity to study developments in comedy and tragedy from classical antiquity to the present day. This focus on genre enables you to take a broadly comparative approach, setting, for instance, works of classical antiquity alongside those of the early modern, modern, and contemporary worlds. As such, the module equips you to draw connections between periods studied separately at different points of your degree and between disparate forms, e.g. drama and the novel. Over the course of this module we will consider questions such as: what is genre, and why is it important? How does genre reflect or respond to historical change? Is there any such thing as a ‘pure’ genre or is hybridization a defining feature of genre itself? We will answer these questions by reading texts by authors such as Angela Carter, Noel Coward, Plautus, Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Wole Soyinka.

    20 credits
    Introduction to Cinema

    This module aims to study a cross-section of the most important American films up to the present day and to develop both a formalist and an institutional analysis of these works. Its intention is to study the growth of the classical Hollywood style, a matter of a sophisticated range of technical stratagems as well as of a genre-based cinema, and of the institution of Hollywood itself, the most significant force in cinema to-day.

    20 credits
    History of English

    This module traces the history of the English language of the Fifth century AD through to the present day. Students will learn about the development of English over this period, looking at the factors which have shaped the language, and learning a variety of techniques for studying the language. The module will also introduce students to the range and variety of the English language at all periods, and to the ways in which English influences, and is influenced by, other languages.

    20 credits
    Introduction to Creative Writing

    The aim of this unit is to help students to develop their expressive and technical skills in writing poetry and prose and to improve their abilities as an editor and critic of their own and other people's writing. Students will be guided in the production of new work and encouraged to develop an analytical awareness of both the craft elements and the wider cultural and theoretical contexts of writing. This module explores poetic techniques for creating new poems and narrative techniques for generating some prose work through the critical study of published examples, imaginative exercises, discussion and feedback on students' own writing. This exploration will help students to develop their own creative work while sharpening critical appreciation of published poetry and modern and contemporary fiction. The course is designed to give students the expereince of being workshopped as well as to establish basic creative writing techniques on Level 1 to preparing students for the challenges of Creative Writing Level 2.

    20 credits

    Try a new subject:

    The flexible structure of your first year at ºù«Ӱҵ means that you also have the chance to experience modules from outside of English - you can choose up to 40 credits of modules from a list approved by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.ÌýA final guided module list is made available to new students when you select your modules as part of registration.

    The content of our courses is reviewed annually to make sure it's up-to-date and relevant. Individual modules are occasionally updated or withdrawn. This is in response to discoveries through our world-leading research; funding changes; professional accreditation requirements; student or employer feedback; outcomes of reviews; and variations in staff or student numbers. In the event of any change we'll consult and inform students in good time and take reasonable steps to minimise disruption.

    Learning and assessment

    Learning

    You'll learn through a mix of lectures and smaller group seminars. We keep seminar groups small because we believe that's the best way to stimulate discussion and debate. All students are assigned a personal tutor with whom they have regular meetings, and you are welcome to see any of the academic staff in their regular office hours if there's anything you want to ask.

    We invest to create the right environment for you. That means outstanding facilities, study spaces and support, including 24/7 access to our online library service.

    Study spaces and computers are available to offer you choice and flexibility for your study. Our five library sites give you access to over 1.3 million books and periodicals. You can access your library account and our rich digital collections from anywhere on or off campus. Other library services include study skills training to improve your grades, and tailored advice from experts in your subject.

    Learning support facilities and library opening hours

    Our staff are researchers, critics, and writers. They're also passionate, dedicated teachers who work tirelessly to ensure their students are inspired.

    Assessment

    In addition to writing essays and more traditional exams, our modules use a range of innovative assessments that can include designing websites, writing blog posts, delivering presentations and working with publishing software.

    Programme specification

    This tells you the aims and learning outcomes of this course and how these will be achieved and assessed.

    Entry requirements

    With Access ºù«Ӱҵ, you could qualify for additional consideration or an alternative offer - find out if you're eligible.

    Standard offer

    The A Level entry requirements for this course are:
    AAB

    A Levels + a fourth Level 3 qualification
    ABB + B in the EPQ
    International Baccalaureate
    34
    BTEC Extended Diploma
    DDD in a relevant subject
    BTEC Diploma
    DD + A at A Level
    Scottish Highers
    AAAAB
    Welsh Baccalaureate + 2 A Levels
    B + AA
    Access to HE Diploma
    Award of Access to HE Diploma in a relevant subject, with 45 credits at Level 3, including 36 at Distinction and 9 at Merit
    Other requirements
    • Evidence of interest in literature, demonstrated through the personal statement is also required

    Access ºù«Ӱҵ offer

    The A Level entry requirements for this course are:
    ABB

    A Levels + a fourth Level 3 qualification
    ABB + B in the EPQ
    International Baccalaureate
    33
    BTEC Extended Diploma
    DDM in a relevant subject
    BTEC Diploma
    DD + B at A Level
    Scottish Highers
    AAABB
    Welsh Baccalaureate + 2 A Levels
    B + AB
    Access to HE Diploma
    Award of Access to HE Diploma in a relevant subject, with 45 credits at Level 3, including 30 at Distinction and 15 at Merit
    Other requirements
    • Evidence of interest in literature, demonstrated through the personal statement is also required

    English language requirements

    You must demonstrate that your English is good enough for you to successfully complete your course. For this course we require: GCSE English Language at grade 4/C; IELTS grade of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component; or an alternative acceptable English language qualification

    Pathway programme for international students

    If you're an international student who does not meet the entry requirements for this course, you have the opportunity to apply for an at the . This course is designed to develop your English language and academic skills. Upon successful completion, you can progress to degree level study at the University of ºù«Ӱҵ.

    If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the school/department.

    Graduate careers

    School of English

    The academic aptitude and personal skills that you develop on your degree will make you highly prized by employers, whatever your chosen career path after university:

    • Excellent oral and written communication
    • Independent working
    • Time management and organisation
    • Planning and researching written work
    • Articulating knowledge and understanding of texts, concepts and theories
    • Leading and participating in discussions
    • Negotiation and teamwork
    • Effectively conveying arguments and opinions and thinking creatively
    • Critical reasoning and analysis

    Our graduates are confident and articulate. They have highly developed communication skills, equipping them for a wide range of careers in journalism, the charity sector, marketing and communications, theatre and television production, PR, copywriting, publishing, teaching, web development, accountancy, and speech and language therapy, among other fields.

    Many of our students go on to postgraduate study, research, and an academic career.

    Your career - the School of English

    School of English

    We're a research-intensive school with an international perspective on English studies. Students can specialise in their chosen subject, whilst taking modules from other programmes, forging interdisciplinary connections. We are famous for our pioneering work with communities, locally and internationally. We encourage our students to get involved and to apply their academic learning, working in partnership with external organisations both within the city of ºù«Ӱҵ and beyond.

    Our staff are researchers, critics, and writers. They're also passionate, dedicated teachers who work tirelessly to ensure their students are inspired.

    We keep seminar groups small because we believe that's the best way to stimulate discussion and debate. Our modules use a range of innovative assessments and can include designing websites, writing blog posts, and working with publishing software, in addition to writing essays and delivering presentations.

    We're committed to providing our students with the pastoral support they need in order to thrive on their degree. All students are assigned a personal tutor with whom they have regular meetings. You are welcome to see any of the academic staff in their regular student consultations if there's anything you want to ask.

    The School of English is based in the Jessop West building at the heart of the university campus, close to the Diamond and the Information Commons. We share the Jessop West Building with the Department of History and the School of Languages and Cultures.

    Facilities

    Our students get to make the most of the University's facilities across campus. Explore some of the teaching, library and social spaces you'll be able to visit as an arts and humanities student.

    School of English

    University rankings

      Number one in the Russell Group
    National Student Survey 2024 (based on aggregate responses)

      92 per cent of our research is rated as world-leading or internationally excellent
    Research Excellence Framework 2021

      University of the Year and best for Student Life
    Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2024

      Number one Students' Union in the UK
    Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017

      Number one for Students' Union
    StudentCrowd 2024 University Awards

      A top 20 university targeted by employers
    The Graduate Market in 2023, High Fliers report

      A top-100 university: 12th in the UK and 98th in the world
    Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025

    Fees and funding

    Fees

    Additional costs

    The annual fee for your course includes a number of items in addition to your tuition. If an item or activity is classed as a compulsory element for your course, it will normally be included in your tuition fee. There are also other costs which you may need to consider.

    Examples of what’s included and excluded

    Funding your study

    Depending on your circumstances, you may qualify for a bursary, scholarship or loan to help fund your study and enhance your learning experience.

    Use our Student Funding Calculator to work out what you’re eligible for.

    Placements and study abroad

    Placements

    You may have the opportunity to add an optional placement year as part of your course, converting the three year course to a four-year Degree with Placement Year. 

    A placement year will help you to:

    • gain an insight into possible careers
    • develop a range of transferable skills
    • build a professional network
    • get a feel for what you do and don’t like doing
    • add valuable work experience to your CV
    • gain experience of applying for jobs and interview practice
    • apply elements of academic learning in the workplace

    There are other opportunities to get work experience, with hands-on projects integrated into several of our academic modules. You can join our student-led volunteering organisation, English in the City, and take part in activities that bring topics in English studies to local school children. All of these experiences will help you build a compelling CV.

    Study abroad

    There are opportunities to study abroad, for a semester or a year, as part of a three or four year degree programme. We have exchange agreements with universities in the USA, Australia, Canada, Singapore and throughout Europe.

    Visit

    University open days

    We host five open days each year, usually in June, July, September, October and November. You can talk to staff and students, tour the campus and see inside the accommodation.

    Open days: book your place

    Subject tasters

    If you’re considering your post-16 options, our interactive subject tasters are for you. There are a wide range of subjects to choose from and you can attend sessions online or on campus.

    Upcoming taster sessions

    Offer holder days

    If you've received an offer to study with us, we'll invite you to one of our offer holder days, which take place between February and April. These open days have a strong department focus and give you the chance to really explore student life here, even if you've visited us before.

    Campus tours

    Our weekly guided tours show you what ºù«Ӱҵ has to offer - both on campus and beyond. You can extend your visit with tours of our city, accommodation or sport facilities.

    Campus tour: book your place

    Apply

    Make sure you've done everything you need to do before you apply.

    How to apply When you're ready to apply, see the UCAS website:

    Not ready to apply yet? You can also register your interest in this course.

    The awarding body for this course is the University of ºù«Ӱҵ.

    Recognition of professional qualifications: from 1 January 2021, in order to have any UK professional qualifications recognised for work in an EU country across a number of regulated and other professions you need to apply to the host country for recognition. Read and the .

    Any supervisors and research areas listed are indicative and may change before the start of the course.

    Our student protection plan

    Terms and Conditions upon Acceptance of an Offer

    2025-2026

    Make sure you've done everything you need to do before you apply.

    How to apply When you're ready to apply, see the UCAS website:

    Not ready to apply yet? You can also register your interest in this course.

    Explore the full range of literary arts from Old English to the 21st century. You’ll have the opportunity to study modules that encompass film, theatre and creative writing, as well as poetry and prose, and to engage with diverse texts from all over the world, both in English and in translation.

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