BA English Literature
2 Years, 2 Years (+ 1 term) | January, July, September.
English Literature here is taught to small groups by energetic and enthusiastic staff, led by Oxford-trained academics with international research profiles in 19th- and 20th-century studies. Ideas developed in core seminars are taken forward in weekly small-group tutorials, where half a dozen students are encouraged to discuss and interpret specific passages of writing, under the watchful guidance of their tutor.
Our students are expected to read widely, and to develop strong lines of argument and personal responses to what they find, anchored in an informed understanding of the discipline and with reference to the critical debates that animate it. We believe, as Jeanette Winterson says, that “learning how to read deeply – and that means diverse and sometimes difficult texts – trains the brain and improves your sense of self. Learning how to write, even reasonably well, gives fluency to the rest of life”.
The degree is structured around a combination of period study, thematic study, and modules inculcating theoretical and practical skills. Victorian literature modules cover prose from Dickens to Gaskell, and poetry from Browning to Hardy; 20th-century literature topics range from Rhys, Hurston, Woolf, and Plath to Hemingway, Forster, Larkin, and Beckett. Shakespeare is one central focus. Other earlier writers who are studied include Marlowe, Donne, Webster, Herbert, Milton, Dryden, Centlivre, Swift, Pope, Blake, Wordsworth, Austen, Keats, and Shelley. Thematic study encourages students to analyse contextually based on sociological variations, gender, contemporary politics, and psychological influences. We encourage the understanding of contemporary literary and cultural theory while never losing sight of the values of liberal / aesthetic education.
