English Literature
BA (Hons)

Foundations of Literary Study: Tragedy (Core)

You will survey the West’s most important literary tradition, from ancient Greece to the present day taking in works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Ibsen along the way.

Introduction to Critical Theory (Core)

The module introduces critical theory and its application to the reading of literary texts. Beginning with classical descriptions of form and unity, the module traces the major developments in critical theory to the present day.

Practical Criticism (Optional)

Module description coming soon.

London Theatre (Optional)

This module introduces you to the contemporary London theatre scene by encouraging you to see a range of productions in London, and training you how to write and review these shows as your assessment.

Contemporary Fiction (Optional)

Classes revolve around five or six novels written in the past three decades. The module expands on the Critical Theory module to pose questions about the politics and pleasures of reading. Recent texts considered have been: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes; Atonement by Ian McEwan; White Teeth by Zadie Smith; and All the Birds Singing, by Evie Wyld. We also often ask our resident authors Christie Watson and Jonathan Gibbs to come in and talk about their books.

Writing Short Fiction (Optional)

The aim of this module is to provide you with an introduction to the key issues, concerns and problems associated with thinking about and writing short stories. The module will concentrate on fundamental components of fiction writing including narrative structure, characterisation, point of view, genre, dialogue and rewriting and editing. Workshop sessions will be a key aspect of the unit, serving both as a means for you to develop your own work as well as your editorial skills through measured and constructive critiquing of the work of your peers.

Film, Style and Form (Optional)

This module introduces you to film and television style. Beginning with a consideration of the variety of forms and approaches to the moving image, you will consider the micro elements of cinema such as mise en scène, cinematography, editing, sound, montage and special effects. You will also consider the macro structures such as narrative and genre, with a focus also on the identities of the producers, performers and audiences for screen industries.

Writing the Renaissance (Core)

This module will introduce you to the cultural history of early modern England, and to the major theoretical and historiographical approaches thereto. The module resituates Shakespearean drama in a broader cultural context.

Romanticism: English Literature and its Background 1776-1832 (Core)

The module asks you to read literature of the ‘Romantic’ period in the context of revolutions and profound changes that were happening in society. While the big six male poets – Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Keats – are considered, the module brings to the fore works by working-class and women writers, such as Shelley’s Frankenstein, Austen’s Persuasion, and John Clare’s poetry.

Gothic Cultures 1760-1900 (Optional)

Starting with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764), which was written at Strawberry Hill, you will examine the result genre of Gothic fiction that flourished during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Writing Adaptations (Optional)

The aim of this module is to offer an examination of the relationships between texts in different creative media, and specifically to develop your critical and creative skills in considering the relationship between the printed word and film/television, with particular emphasis upon the techniques and processes of adaptation. Source material for consideration in the module will include short stories, novels, comics and graphic novels, non-fiction and video or computer games. Adaptations from page-to-screen as well as from screen-to-page (novelisations, tie-ins, spin-offs, etc) will be examined.

Curating London (Optional)

In this module, oriented towards the achievement of your career aspirations, you first examine the history of, and writing about, the capital city, and are then asked to plan and execute an enterprising project on the subject. You may create an education website on some aspect, design a walking tour of a part of the city, or curate a small exhibition or film season on a particular theme.

Narrative and Identity in the 19th Century Novel (Optional)

Module description coming soon.

The Irish Literary Revival on Page and Stage (Optional)

This module examines the development of Irish literature and drama from the late 19th Century to the present, charting the ways in which the texts studied reflect social and political change from the setting up of the Abbey Theatre to the boom of the Celtic Tiger. The first part of the module will analyse the work of W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Synge. You will specifically consider how the radical cultural nationalism of the literary revival contributed to the political ferment which would eventually lead to revolution and independence in Ireland. The next four weeks consider a range of reactions from the counter-revival, examining the ways in which the procedures of the Revivalists were extended, parodied or rebutted by artists like Sean O'Casey and Brendan Behan. The final weeks focus on the Irish contribution to contemporary drama, from the influence of Beckett's work to recent international successes like Marina Carr and Conor McPherson.

Eighteenth Century London: Writing the Metropolis 1700-1832 (Optional)

You will study the growth of the world’s first ‘mega city’ by looking at the writing produced in and about it during the long eighteenth century.

The module aims to enable you to read a number of literary works within the context of the metropolis as it was during the period 1700-1830, and to encourage you to reflect on the synthesis between historical and geographical environments and the texts that arise from them and come to define them.

Modernisms in English Literature (Core)

This core module concerns the great flowering of European culture from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War. Authors examined include Thomas Hardy, T S Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf.

Dissertation (Core)

Working closely with a supervisor, you are given the opportunity to specialise in a subject of particular academic or career interest to you. Students often describe submission of this piece of work as their proudest moment, because it represents the fulfilment of three years of study and a symbol of the expertise gained during this time.

Writing Conflict: Literature of the First World War (Optional)

The war of 1914-8 saw killing on an industrial unseen hitherto; the module examines how it is possible to respond to the horror and pity of war in literature and in art. As well as the well-known British war poets such as Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen, the course also looks at writing by authors of other nationalities, and some more recent representations of the war.

Special Study (Optional)

Module description coming soon.

Literature and the Unconscious (Optional)

Taking texts like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and R L Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde as examples, this module proposes a psychoanalytic approach to reading literature, and asks you to examine the literary text as an expression of those repressed anxieties and desires we call ‘the unconscious’.

New Voices: Twentieth-Century Literature (Optional)

Module description coming soon.