
BA (Hons) English Literature
DURATION
3 up to 6 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
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EARLIEST START DATE
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TUITION FEES
GBP 13,450 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* international students full time, part time £1680 per 15 credits / UK students full time £9250, part time £1155 per 15 credits / EU students full time £13450, part time £1680 per 15 credits
Scholarships
Explore scholarship opportunities to help fund your studies
Introduction
"Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2021/2022. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details."
Why choose this course?
We give you:
- A fresh take on traditional writing and the opportunity to study contemporary works that speak directly to our everyday lives
- An expert academic team to support you and build your confidence as you develop into a literary scholar
- A flexible programme of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
- Teaching rated excellent by 92.14% of our students in the 2018 National Student Survey
- CV-building potential through work placements and extra-curricular activities
What's the course about?
Study English Literature with us and we’ll help you grow from a passionate reader into a critical thinker and literary scholar.
You’ll be taught by research-active academics who bring fresh thinking to our accessible, engaging courses. This means you’ll study literature written in English by writers from all parts of the globe, whose voices are relevant and important in our modern world.
We’ll introduce you to writers who will open doors to contemporary worlds and cultures remote from your own, and also help you explore more familiar literature in ways that challenge your preconceptions.
Whatever your taste in literature, our courses will interest and provoke you. From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Jane Eyre, from Paradise Lost to Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, we’ll broaden your literary horizons and hone your critical thinking.
A core module in your first year will equip you to read and interpret both traditional and contemporary literary texts critically as a scholar of English literature. Alongside this, you can choose to study international and American literature or revisit Shakespeare and consider his cultural relevance today through fictional, cinematic, and TV adaptations.
In your second year, you’ll focus on period-based literature from the Renaissance onwards and gain an understanding of literary history, from Elizabethan verse and drama, via Augustan poetry and the emergence of the novel in the 18th century, to the radical transformations of the Victorian age, and the emergence of modernity in the 20th century. You’ll also have the opportunity to consider ways of reading that go beyond textual analysis or historical contexts, such as understanding literature through the political or ideological lens of Marxism, feminism, and post-colonial theory. Our English Literature students can choose a work experience module, Literature at Work, which explores English in the classroom and aspects of the literary heritage industry. The module is centred around a six-week work placement where you’ll gain valuable transferable skills. Our students have worked as school classroom assistants, in publishing houses or attractions such as London’s Charles Dickens Museum and Dr. Johnson’s House.
Work placement/study abroad option: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.
You’ll have the chance to specialise in your final year, tailoring your degree to reflect your own interests. Themed options include children’s literature, young adult fiction, Renaissance tragedy, 21st century American literature, European crime fiction, literary adaptations, and the culture of print in the 18th century.
If you have a particular interest or independent research idea you can choose to work with a supervisor to write an extended dissertation. Previous dissertations have focused on subjects as diverse as anthropomorphism in Beatrix Potter’s animal tales; Black British identity in young adult fiction and grime music; women in Shakespearean tragedy; and slavery and the frontier in early American gothic short stories.
Your main campus is de Havilland
You’ll share this campus with students from business, law, sport, education, and humanities subjects. The student housing is close to our Sports Village which includes a gym, swimming pool, and climbing wall. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner in our on-campus restaurant or bar (in the newly built Enterprise Hub) on days you don’t feel like cooking. You can also use the common room to play pool, video games or just to hang out with friends. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.
This course includes the options of:
- Work placement
- Study abroad
Gallery
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Curriculum
What will I study?
Level 4
- Texts Up Close: Reading and Interpretation II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Make it New: Literary Tradition and Experimentation II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Journeys and Quests: Adventures in Literature II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Border Crossings: Modern Literature from around the World II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Shakespeare Reframed II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Identity and Contemporary Writing II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- American Voices: Introduction to US Literature and Culture II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Romantic Origins & Gothic Afterlives II 15 Credits II Compulsory
Level 5
- Ways of Reading: Literature and Theory II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Graduate Skills II 0 Credits II Compulsory
- A Nation of Readers: British Identity and Enlightenment Culture II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Revisiting the Renaissance II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1900-1945 II 15 Credits II Optional
- American Literature to 1900 II 15 Credits II Optional
- Twentieth-Century North American Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Images of Contemporary Society: British Literature and the Politics of Identity II 15 Credits II Optional
- Age of Transition: the Victorians and Modernity II 15 Credits II Optional
- Literature at Work II 15 Credits II Optional
Level 6
- Renaissance Tragedy II 15 Credits II Optional
- Eighteenth-Century Bodies II 15 Credits II Optional
- Literature Project II 30 Credits II Optional
- Between the Acts: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1890-1920 II 15 Credits II Optional
- Postmodern Genders II 15 Credits II Optional
- Children's Literature: Growing up in Books II 15 Credits II Optional
- Native American Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- East End Fictions: Interdisciplinary Studies of London's East End II 15 Credits II Optional
- Worlds Apart 1: Utopian & Dystopian Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Texts and Screens: Studies in Literary Adaptation II 15 Credits II Optional
- The Golden Age: Victorian Children's Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- African-American Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic II 15 Credits II Optional
- Twenty-first Century American Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Euro-Crime on Page and Screen II 15 Credits II Optional
Study abroad
An opportunity for an amazing experience, which will help make you stand out from the crowd. With more and more companies working internationally, the experience of living in another country can make a great impression on future employers.
This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a sandwich year abroad. The University has partnerships with over 150 universities around the world, including the USA, Canada, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and closer to home in Europe.
If you study abroad between your second and third year of study, you’ll pay no tuition fee to the partner university and no tuition fee to us either. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Work placement
Graduate with invaluable work experience alongside your degree and stand out from the crowd.
This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a work placement sandwich year. It’s a chance to explore career possibilities, make valuable contacts and gain sought-after professional skills.
Our dedicated Careers and Employment team are here to help guide you through the process.
If you take up a work placement between your second and third year of study, at the University of Hertfordshire you’ll pay no tuition fee for this year. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.