English BA (Hons)

Module details Programme Year One

• Six core modules

Year One ensures that you have a foundation on which to go on to study literature or language modules in your next two years. In addition to the six core English modules, you take a further two modules from an extremely wide range of options offered by other departments in the University, usually from within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences but also from other disciplines throughout the University (note that, in some cases, A level study in a relevant subject may be a prerequisite).

Compulsory modules

• Close Reading: (ENGL103) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester First Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 50:50 Aims

• To foster and enhance the skills of close reading by drawing attention to what is needed to read texts attentively and to acquire appropriate vocabulary and techniques for successful close reading. consider the implications of these categories for both writing and reading literary texts.

• To enable students to criticise and write focused critical essays on the basis of their attentive reading,  discuss mattes such as form, structure, voice and genre with confidence and using appropriate vocabular; ​

• To expand our understanding and appreciation of texts and to consider the implications of using categories such as genre, structure, voice and form when analysing and discussing text.​

Learning Outcomes

The ability to demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles and aims of literary criticism, including offering intelligent and informed responses to a range of literary texts from a variety of periods.

The ability to deploy an initial analytical and critical vocabulary for the discussion of English literature and to demonstrate the knowledge and skills of close reading in informed discussion, both orally and in the writing of coherent, lucid and informed critical essays. ​

To develop the ability to listen attentively and garner relevant information, practice and knowledge from views presented by others.​

• English Language: Variation and Context (ENGL110) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester Second Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 75:25 Aims
• To introduce students to language variation and the importance of context in shaping language.
  

• To raise student awareness of the communicative purposes served through language use.
  

• To equip students with the theoretical tools that will enable them to ​analyse and interpret a wide range of language data.

Learning Outcomes Demonstrate a clear understanding of language variation and the importance of context in shaping language.


​Exhibit knowledge and understanding of the communicative functions of language.

​Appreciate the different ways of studying the English language.


Analyse and interpret variation and context in naturally occurring data​.

• Literature In Time (ENGL111) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester First Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 70:30 Aims

• To consider in detail, and from a range of critical and historicalperspectives, (a) how texts can be grouped in literary or cultural periods, (b)how texts respond to other texts over wide spans of time, and (c) how textsrespond to immediate public or historical events.

• ​To examine the relationship between writing and different kinds of context (historical, biographical, print).

• ​ Tohighlight the importance of Blblical sources within the history of literature.

Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate familiaritywith a range of literary genres and conventions from a variety of periods.


​ Demonstrate the abilityto provide historically informed, contextualised readings of literary texts.

​Demonstrate familiarity with a range of critical approaches to the literary texts,authors and issues covered by the module.

​Demonstrate the abilityto participate in group discussion of this material, and write coherentlyconstructed and knowledgeable essays on the texts and issues studied.

• Shakespeare: Ways of Thinking (ENGL112) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester Second Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 70:30 Aims

• To examine closely a range of Shakespeare''s plays and the cultural and historical contexts in which they were originally produced, read, and performed.

  
  

  
  

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  To develop an understanding of the ways of thinking presented within Shakespeare''s plays, through language, poetry, rhetoric, drama, and the manipulation of sources and genres.

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  To introduce students to the diversity of current critical and theoretical perspectives and ways of thinking about the plays.
Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the module, students should be able to demonstrate:

Knowledge of a substantial number of Shakespeare’s works, from various genres, and of their relations to each other.




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The ability to relate the plays to their literary, cultural, and historical contexts.

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An informed awareness of established critical traditions, and of the various ways in which one might make critical and theoretical approaches to Shakespearean drama, using appropriate critical methodologies, vocabulary, and secondary sources.

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The capacity to structure a coherent and critically informed analysis of selected texts and specific passages and scenes.​
• Describing English Language (ENGL101) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester First Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 75:25 Aims

• ​ Tofamiliarise students with the structural aspects of language

• ​ Toraise student awareness of the nature of specific structures (eg. words,sounds) and their contribution to the constitution of the English language. 

• To enable students to analyse real language data drawingupon relevant theoretical concepts

Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding ofthe major concepts in language study

Beable to discuss some of the main ways in which the academic study of languageis conducted ​

Have a clear understanding of therelationship between the structural aspects of English

Demonstratethe ability to apply relevant theoretical concepts to real language data ​

• Ways of Reading (ENGL113) Level 1 Credit level 15 Semester Second Semester Exam:Coursework weighting 50:50 Aims
  1. To allow you to consider the ways in which we read and write about literary texts in different contexts (political, historical, and aesthetic)
  2. To encourage you to consider how different methods of reading and interpretation might improve your understanding and analysis of literary texts
  3. To introduce you to critical issues related to shifts in the creation and reception of literary texts 
  Learning Outcomes ​​​​​ Interpret literary texts in relation to specific themes and issues

  Apply appropriate critical terminology and methodologies in the production of literary interpretations

   

  ​​ Explain different ways in which literary texts can be interpreted in diverse contexts

Programme Year Two

• Optional modules to the value of 120 credits

You choose a package of modules to reflect your own strengths and interests. You can create an individual degree programme with many different kinds of emphasis – for example, stressing the earlier historical periods, or the more modern, or literary theory, drama, poetry, fiction, or language description. We offer a selection of more than 40 modules to choose from, with only a few simple restrictions to ensure breadth of study. We constantly monitor the curriculum, to ensure that the programme reflects current developments in the subject, and conforms to national requirements. The way your choices are guided may therefore vary, although options available and the principle of flexibility combined with range will remain constant. Literature modules in Year Two are designed as period courses providing an overview of the major periods of literary history.

Language modules in Year Two are designed to offer you a sample of major approaches to the analysis of language and text. The modules build on the familiarity with basic analytical and interpretative concepts introduced in Year One and extend them in a range of ways.

The current modules in Year Two are:

• American Literature
• Drama 1580-1730*
• Romantic and Pre-Romantic Literature*
• The History of English
• Medieval Narratives*
• Milton to Dr Johnson*
• Pragmatics
• Psycholinguistics
• Renaissance Poetry and Prose*
• Victorian Literature
• Creativity

It is also possible to take a small number of modules which are compatible with English through other departments (such as Irish Studies)

* To ensure that individual programmes of study include familiarity with earlier literature, if you opt for any literature modules, you must take a minimum of 30 credits on earlier periods. This requirement is usually fulfilled in Year Two.

Programme Year Three

• Optional modules to the value of 120 credits, which may include a dissertation on a subject of your own choice for 30 credits.

In Year Three, many Single Honours students write a dissertation (worth 30 credits) and make up the remaining 90 points by choosing from a range of modules. The only restriction is that, if you want to take any literature modules, you must have taken at least one literature module in Year Two; and, similarly, to take any language modules, you must have taken at least one language module in Year Two.

Literature modules in Year Three are designed to allow greater specialisation and generic and/or thematic focus against the background of period knowledge provided by the Year Two modules. Language modules are intended to further extend the range and scope of your familiarity with linguistic enquiry: topic areas are covered which lend themselves to independent empirical research.

The current modules in Year Three include the following, though not all are on offer every year:

• All Points North: Literature and the North of England
• American Poetic Writing Since 1930
• Analysing discourse
• Attitudes to English
• British Poetic Writing since 1930
• Children’s Literature
• Contemporary Writing
• Creative Writing (Poetry)
• Creative Writing (Prose)
• Dissertation
• Early Modern Women Writers
• The Fin de Siècle
• Language and Gender
• Language and Literature
• Modern American Fiction
• Noir: Literature, Film and Art
• Renaissance Travel Writing
• Shakespeare, Stage to Page to Screen
• Suspense and Sensibility: The Novel 1740-1824
• Swift and the Scriblerians
• Tale and Fable: Approaches to Narrative
• Women Writers
• Women Behaving Badly in 19th Century Fiction
• Talking Pictures

It is also possible to take a small number of modules which are compatible with English through other departments (such as Irish Studies e.g. ‘Experiments in Irish Fiction’).

The modules listed above are illustrative and subject to change. Please refer to the department site for further information