Classical Studies & Comparative Literature

Courses are divided into modules. Each year you will normally take modules totalling 120 credits.

Classical Studies

There are no required Classics modules in Year 1

Comparative Literature

You are required to take the following Comparative Literature modules:

• What is Comparative Literature? Conceptions and Methods (15 credits)
• Comparative Literature: Theoretical Foundations (15 credits)

Classical Studies

You will choose 60 credits from a wide range of optional Classics modules (of which a maximum of 30 credits may be language modules) which may typically include:

• Greek Language 1 (30 credits)
• Greek Language 2 (30 credits)
• Greek Language 3 (30 credits)
• Latin Language 1 (30 credits)
• Latin Language 2 (30 credits)
• Latin Language 3 (30 credits)
• Art & Archaeology of Greece & Rome (30 credits)
• Introduction to Ancient History (c. 1200 BC - AD 600) (30 credits)
• Greek & Latin Literature: An Introduction (30 credits)
• Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (30 credits)
• Working with Greek & Latin Literary Texts: An Introduction (30 credits)
• Introduction to Byzantium & Modern Greece: The Greek-speaking world from 330 AD to today (15 credits)
• Receptions of the Past: The Hellenic World from Antiquity to Today (15 credits)

Comparative Literature

Additionally, You will take 30 credits from a range of optional Comparative Literature modules that may typically include:

• The Writer in the Text (15 credits)
• Forms of Shorter Narrative (15 credits)
• Genres of World Literature (15 credits)
• The Novel in 18th Century Europe (15 credits)
• Reading Modern Poetry Comparatively: Greek & English (15 credits)

You have the opportunity to study abroad for either the second semester of the second year or for the whole of the second year. Partner institutions currently include:

• University of Auckland
• University of Melbourne
• University of Toronto (Full year only)
• University of California
• University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• University of Sydney

Classical Studies

There are no required Classics modules in Year 2.

Comparative Literature

You are required to take 30 credits from the following selections:

• Literature and Empire (15 credits) and Ideas of Nation (15 credits)

• The Book in the Modern World (15 credits) and The Canon (15 credits)

Classical Studies

You are required to take 60 credits from a wide range of Classics modules which may typically include:

• Greek Language 1 (30 credits)
• Greek Language 3A (30 credits)
• Latin Language 1 (30 credits)
• Latin Language 3A (30 credits)
• Roman Britain (30 credits)
• Art & Power in the Age of Alexander (Hellenistic Art I) (15 credits)
• Introductory Greek Texts: Prose (15 credits)
• From Sulla to Caesar: the fall of the Roman Republic (15 credits)
• Early Greece from Troy to Marathon (15 credits)
• Pompeii: History & Society (15 credits)
• Introductory Latin Texts: Prose (15 credits)
• Homer (15 credits)
• Myth and Literature: ancient stories, modern meanings (15 credits)
• Death in Greek literature (15 credits)
• Virgils’s Aeneid (15 credits)
• The Art of Acquisition: Conquest, Collection & the Rise of Rome (Hellenistic Art II) (15 credits)
• Building Greece (15 credits)
• Constantinople: Imperial Capital – Medieval Metropolis (15 credits)
• Introductory Greek Texts: Verse (15 credits)
• Democracy, Empire & War: Greece 446-338 BC (15 credits)
• The Late Roman World, AD 337-425 (15 credits)
• Introductory Latin Texts: Verse (15 credits)
• Wisdom and the Divine: ancient Greek philosophy & religion (15 credits)
• Ancient Sexuality I (15 credits)
• Ancient Sexuality II (15 credits)
• Latin Lyric Poetry (15 credits)
• The Novels of Nikos Kazantzakis & the Ancient World (15 credits)

Comparative Literature

You are required to take at least 15 credits from a range of optional 15 credit Comparative Literature modules which may typically include:

• Literature & Empire (15 credits)
• Ideas of Nation (15 credits)
• Travel Writing (15 credits)
• The Book in the Modern World (15 credits)
• The Canon (15 credits)
• Writing Africa: Anglophone, Francophone (15 credits)
• Socialism & Literature in China & India in the Twentieth Century (15 credits)
• Palestinian & Israeli Literature (15 credits)
• The Faust Tradition: Dramatic Transformations (15 credits)
• The Promise of Poetry: What is Poetic Language? (15 credits)
• Forms of Discovery: Hardy, Cavafy & the Modern Short Poem (15 credits)

You may also take up to 30 credits from approved optional modules offered by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.

3rd Year

Classical Studies

There are no required Classics modules in Year 3.

Comparative Literature

You are required to take:

• Dissertation (10,000 words) (30 credits)

Classical Studies

You are required to take at least 45 credits from a range of optional Classics modules that may typically include:

• Minoans & Mycenaeans (30 credits)
• The Classical Art of the Body: Greek Sculpture (30 credits)
• The Art of Making: Craft Production from Classical Antiquity to Today (30 credits)
• Augustus: Power & Propaganda (30 credits)
• The History & Theory of Ancient Slavery (30 credits)
• Greek Religion (30 credits)
• Pagans, Christians & Jews in the Roman Empire (30 credits)
• Streetwise: narrating the city in classical literature (30 credits)
• Neronian Literature & Culture (30 credits)
• Plato’s myths: the soul, desire & the Beyond (30 credits)
• Living for ever: fame & glory from Homeric heroes to Roman emperors (and beyond) (30 credits)
• An Introduction to Classical Reception Studies in Sixteen Encounters (30 credits)
• Dissertation (30 credits)
• Greek Texts: Prose (15 Credits)
• Persian Kings & their Territory in the Achaemenid Empire (15 Credits)
• Latin Texts: Prose (15 Credits)
• Descent to the Underworld: transformations of a myth (15 Credits)
• Romanticism & Revolution: Byron, the Shelleys & Greece (15 Credits)
• Origins of Nations & Nationalism: Identity in the Hellenic world (15 Credits)
• Venice: history & art (15 Credits)
• Greek Texts: Poetry (15 Credits)
• Latin Texts: Poetry (15 Credits)

Comparative Literature

You are also required to take at least 15 credits from a range of optional 15-credit Comparative Literature modules which may typically include:

• Surrealism (15 Credits)
• Imaginary Geographies (15 Credits)
• From Opium to Maximum City: Narrating political economy in India & China (15 Credits)
• The French Revolution Effect (15 Credits)
• Listening Across the Channel: Sound & Literature (15 Credits)
• Modern Arabic Literature (15 Credits)
• Testimony: The Holocaust & Rwanda (15 Credits)
• Literature, Solidarity, & the Humanitarian Turn (15 Credits)

You may also take up to 30 credits from approved optional modules offered by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis in order to provide up-to-date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. The optional modules offered may therefore change.