English Literature

Our BA English Literature Programmes are ranked 12th in the Guardian University Guide 2020 and are taught to small groups by energetic and enthusiastic 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 a maximum of eight students discuss and interpret specific passages of writing, under the watchful guidance of their tutor.

Students will read widely and 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”.