English literature ba(hons)

Year 1

The content and structure of the course reflects its aims and ethos, providing a core grounding in approaches, theories, genres and periods in the first two years, followed by opportunities for pursuing individual research and practice interests in the third year.

Your degree includes core literature modules and further option modules through which you will be able to forge a personal pathway. For example you might take creative or writing modules at each level to provide a distinctive creative strand through the degree, which can then be supplemented in your dissertation. Students may also take one option from outside literature in years 2 and 3, with choice across the fields of linguistics, media and language.

You’ll develop presentation skills through seminar groups, which foster and enable a debating culture.

• Practices of Reading and Writing

  In this module you will build on and identify skills and techniques essential to the study and expression of writing, focusing through close reading on writerly techniques to apply to your own critical and creative practices.

  Practical workshops on reading and writing skills will be supplemented by creative workshops and master classes led by professional writers, enabling you to develop confidence with your reading and writing processes and develop research and presentation skills through individual and collaborative work.

• Narrative and Narratives

  This module acts as a bridge from your earlier experiences of reading narrative texts and will encourage you to reflect on those early experiences. You will be introduced to a variety of narrative texts and genres (including early forms such as fairy-tales and myths) and to key issues in narrative theory. The module offers you an awareness of narrative as central to being human and allows you scope to explore narratives in creative and personal as well as critic always in a journal.

• English Poetry in Context

  This module will enable you to build on your earlier educational experiences of poetry and to extend your appreciation of and critical confidence with the mode. You will examine a diverse range of British poetry, analysing poetry and its responses to socio-historical contexts.

• Literature and Theory

  This module will introduce you to the key philosophical and theoretical approaches to the reading of literary texts, and situates that knowledge within a historical overview of literary criticism. By the end of the module you will be able to apply theoretical vocabulary and knowledge of critical concepts in the interpretation of literary works.

• Drama in Society

  This module will introduce you to drama as both performative and literary texts. The module approaches drama through practical, textual and theoretical readings, as well as through placing drama in its social and political contexts. How do plays engage with the world we live in today? The module focuses on twentieth century dramatic texts in order to explore the role and function of drama in society. You will look at, for example, naturalist drama, Brechtian drama, theatre of the absurd, feminist theatre, postcolonial theatre, and in yer face theatre.

• Enlightenment to Romanticisms

  This module will introduce you to some of the most important literary and social writings of the Enlightenment and Romantic periods. It situates the work of the major Enlightenment thinkers and Romantic writers, between approximately 1680 and 1830, within their historical and discursive contexts, and explores the political and aesthetic concepts that underpin their work.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through our applicant portal.