BA English Literature

The programme is offered in full-time mode over three academic years. You will study a total of 360 credits (120 credits per year). You must pass each academic year before being allowed to proceed.

The modules shown exemplify the typical curriculum and will be reviewed before the 2024/2025 academic year. The final modules will be published by September 2024.

Year One

You study 120 credits each year of your degree.

Year one is a foundation year, comprising core and optional modules, which are designed to equip you with the skills for advanced study and to give you an overview of the subject that will enable you to make informed choices from the modules available in years two and three.

Core Modules for Year One

• Critical Reading and Critical Writing
• Ways of Reading

Optional Modules for Year One

• Drama: Stage and Page
• Star-cross Lovers: the Politics of Desire
• Transforming Visions: Text and Image
• Creative Reading
• Creative Writing
• Transgressive Bodies in Medieval Literature

Year Two

You select six 20-credit modules from a range of categories that are based on period, genre or theme. There are no compulsory modules.

You will be reading a variety of texts in their historical and cultural contexts while continuing to develop your critical methodologies and knowledge of the subject.

Optional Modules for Year Two

• Children's Literature
• Literary Lives
• Style and Genre
• Medieval Arthurian Literature
• Modernist Fictions
• Children's Literature: Form and Function
• Introduction to Romantic Poetry
• African-American Literature
• Imaginary Journeys: More to Huxley
• Modernism and the City

Year Three

By your final year, you will have gained experience in a variety of literary periods, topics, genres and approaches, developing your critical faculties and your skills in analysing texts and contexts.

You choose six 20-credit modules. The range of more specialised modules on offer engage with current issues in research and scholarship about authors and texts, both well-known and possibly less familiar to you. You have the option to undertake independent research on a subject of your choice through the Dissertation module.

Optional Modules for Year Three

The University is committed to providing a wide range of module options where possible, but please be aware that whilst every effort is made to offer choice this may be limited in certain circumstances. This is because some modules have limited numbers of places available, which are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, while others have minimum student numbers required before they will run, to ensure that an appropriate quality of education can be delivered; some modules require students to have already taken particular subjects, and others are core or required on the programme you are taking. Modules may also be limited due to timetable clashes, and although the University works to minimise disruption to choice, we advise you to seek advice from the relevant School on the module choices available.

Optional Modules for Year Three

• Children's Literature
• Literary Lives
• Style and Genre
• Medieval Arthurian Literature
• Modernist Fictions
• Children's Literature: Form and Function
• Introduction to Romantic Poetry
• African-American Literature
• Imaginary Journeys: More to Huxley
• Modernism and the City
• Gothic Fiction: The Romantic Age
• Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Women
• Girls
• Object Women in Literature and Film
• Epic and Saga
• Second-generation Romantic Poets
• Gothic Fiction: The Victorians
• Contemporary British Fictions
• Philosophy and Literature
• Shakespeare's Worlds
• Victorian Worlds: Revolution, Disease, Deviance
• International Study Abroad

How Will I Be Assessed?

All English Literature modules offer the opportunity to undertake unassessed draft formative work appropriate to the module. The form(s) of summative assessment for individual modules are set out in the relevant module descriptions. Most modules are assessed by essay and/or examination, but some include other forms of assessment such as journal entries, a portfolio, presentations or video essays. The assessment strategy is structured to lead you from formative thinking throughout the module towards the production of an informed critical/creative response.

Emphasis in the assessment of English Literature modules is placed on the writing of clear, persuasive and scholarly essays presented professionally and submitted on time. Details of any academic or competence standards which may limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for disabled students are noted in the module descriptions.

Written feedback is provided on both formative and summative assessments, and you are encouraged to discuss your ideas with module tutors in seminars and, where appropriate, on a one-to-one basis during office hours. Your achievements and progress are also discussed in regular progress meetings with personal tutors.

What Skills Will I Practise and Develop?

Knowledge & Understanding

• Awareness of different literary periods, movements and genres and the variety of English literature
• Understanding of the importance of historical and cultural contexts
• Ability to sustain a critical argument that is responsive to the workings of language and literary styles
• Awareness of the bibliographic conventions of the discipline and their role in communicating information
• Knowledge of the critical issues and/or debates surrounding, or raised by, texts
• Understanding of the shaping effects of historical and cultural circumstances on the production and meaning of texts
• Knowledge of appropriate critical vocabulary and terminology

Intellectual Skills

• Ability to handle complex ideas with clarity
• Ability to analyse and interpret material drawn from a diversity of literary periods
• Ability to apply high-level critical skills of close analysis to literary texts
• Ability to select and organise material purposefully and cogently

Professional Practical Skills

• Advanced communication skills (written and oral)
• Ability to give an efficient critical evaluation of documents in various styles
• Ability to access, use and evaluate electronic data
• Ability to interact effectively with others, in team or group work situations

Transferable/Key Skills

• Ability to select and organise material purposefully and cogently.
• Ability to plan, organize, and deliver work to a deadline.

Our graduates progress into a wide range of careers using the skills gained throughout their degrees. Some choose to pursue professions making direct use of their discipline expertise, while others enter the public or private sectors, from teaching to graduate-track management.

Many have gone on to roles in education, HR, marketing, publishing, public relations, the civil service, the military, banking and insurance, and the charity sector, in first posts including Trainee Teacher, Marketing Assistant, Account Executive, Digital Editor and Editorial Assistant.

During your degree, you can take full advantage of the wide range of opportunities provided by the university's Student Futures team.

Graduate Careers

• Reporter
• Crime Intelligence Analyst
• Teacher
• Writer
• Researcher