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English Literature BA (Q300)

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Find out more about our English Literature degree at Warwick

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2a

Q300

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Bachelor of Arts (BA)

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3 years full-time

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26 September 2022

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English and Comparative Literary Studies

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University of Warwick

3a

Study at one of the world’s top universities for English literature. Our degree will spark your passion for reading and writing, and develop your intellectual, political, and creative responses to literature and the world. As your understanding of literature and yourself is transformed, you will be prepared for an array of careers that value strong communication skills and critical thinking.

3b

What inspires you? Is it the stories left behind by history’s witnesses, or the ideas that define modern society? Is it the cultures that surround you every day, or the life of distant places - even other, imagined worlds?

Are you interested in how writing lies at the heart of everything we do, and everything we can be – its ability to change our minds and change the world? A degree in English Literature at Warwick will spark the passion for reading and writing you’ve had all your life and develop it into an expert knowledge of literary culture.

In your second and third years you will build your theoretical and historical knowledge of literature whilst also choosing from one of the widest and most innovative range of modules anywhere in the country.

Whether your interests are classical or modern, or somewhere in between, you will have the freedom to create a degree that reflects your interests and motivations. Our undergraduates enter the workplace as confident, ethical, and compassionate thinkers with exceptional writing and communication skills.

3c

You will begin with the foundations of literary studies, reading work from the ancient past to the present, from Homer and Virgil to Alison Bechdel and Janelle Monae.

Your critical thinking and grasp of literary theory will develop in Modes of Reading, while in Medieval to Renaissance English Literature you’ll take in some of the great writers of English literature, such as Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. Epic into Novel will give you an understanding of some of the most celebrated literary forms of classical and modern times, while you will tackle the literature and politics that define contemporary life in Modern World Literatures – though if you’d prefer to learn a language instead, that option is open to you too.

In your second year you can choose from an array of modules on all periods alongside our core module, Literature in Theory, and a module of your choice on pre-1900 literature.

The core in your final year is the Dissertation, and you will then choose two further modules of your choice and a fourth on one of our many Global literature modules.

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Teaching and assessment is distinctive. You will write essays, deliver presentations and take exams, but you also might make a short film, a wiki page or write a sonata.

Most core modules in your first year are taught by means of one lecture and one seminar per week in terms one and two. In your second and third years, optional modules are normally taught by means of one seminar per week. Workshops on academic writing, employability, and personal development are also available throughout your degree.

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Targeted teaching with class sizes of 10-15 students (on average).

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Guided learning of typically eight contact hours per week, plus extra-curricular workshops and reading groups. Seminars are usually 1, 1.5 or 2 hours each; lectures are an hour.

3g

You can choose your preferred form of assessment from traditional essays and written examinations to creative projects, portfolios, video-essays, blogs, and films. For example, in our Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of his Time module, student work recently included film and radio adaptations, musical compositions, painting, sculpture, photography inspired by Shakespeare's texts, as well as essays and close readings.

3h

Study abroad

As a student on our English degrees, you will have the opportunity to spend your third year at one of our partner institutions in the USA, Europe, China, Australia or Japan.

You will then return to Warwick to complete your fourth and final year of your degree. You will be able to apply to transfer to the four-year course when you are in your second year at Warwick, subject to availability of places from the University's International Office.

4a

A level typical offer

AAA or A*AB to include grade A in English Literature or English Language and Literature (combined).

A level contextual offer

We welcome applications from candidates who meet the contextual eligibility criteria and whose predicted grades are close to, or slightly below, the contextual offer level. The typical contextual offer is ABB including an A in English Literature or English Language and Literature (combined). See if you're eligible.

General GCSE requirements

Unless specified differently above, you will also need a minimum of GCSE grade 4 or C (or an equivalent qualification) in English Language and either Mathematics or a Science subject. Find out more about our entry requirements and the qualifications we accept. We advise that you also check the English Language requirements for your course which may specify a higher GCSE English requirement. Please find the information about this below.

4b

IB typical offer

38 to include 6 at Higher Level in English Literature or English Language and Literature (combined).

IB contextual offer

We welcome applications from candidates who meet the contextual eligibility criteria and whose predicted grades are close to, or slightly below, the contextual offer level. The typical contextual offer is 34 including 6 at Higher Level in English Literature or English Language and Literature (combined). See if you're eligible.

General GCSE requirements

Unless specified differently above, you will also need a minimum of GCSE grade 4 or C (or an equivalent qualification) in English Language and either Mathematics or a Science subject. Find out more about our entry requirements and the qualifications we accept. We advise that you also check the English Language requirements for your course which may specify a higher GCSE English requirement. Please find the information about this below.

4c

We welcome applications from students taking BTECs alongside A level English Literature or English Language and Literature (combined).

4i

We do not typically interview applicants. Offers are made based on your UCAS form which includes predicted and actual grades, your personal statement and school reference.

5a

Year One

Modes of Reading

What is a reader? How is our understanding and perception of a text formed? What does it mean to think critically when we read? This module allows you to explore these questions by putting a spotlight on the question of critical thinking in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. By studying a series of literary texts in relation to some of the most influential literary and cultural theorists of the last hundred years, you will take your own position on everything from Marxism, queer and feminist theory to ecocriticism and postcolonial critique.

Medieval and Early Modern Literature

Taking you from the mythical court of King Arthur to the real world of ambition, intrigue, and danger in the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, this module introduces you to early literature written in a range of genres (romance, epic, fabliau) and poetic forms. You will study texts like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Thomas More’s Utopia, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare’s sonnets to explore some of the period’s highest ideals—‘trawthe’ or integrity—as well as some of humanity’s darkest impulses: greed, deception, revenge, and desire.

Epic into Novel

Tracking the transition from the epics of the ancient world to the novels of modernity, this module introduces you to some of the most influential and formative works of world literature. You will study central texts of the classical world, such as Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid; the ancient Indian epic The Mahābhārata; Milton’s Paradise Lost; as well as novels like Henry Fielding’s bawdy comedy Tom Jones and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s novel of decolonising Kenya, A Grain of Wheat. Reading across history and cultures, between languages and genres, you will develop the skills to analyse narrative, character, and style.

Modern World Literatures

This module introduces you to the defining concerns, styles, and contexts of modern world literature from 1789 to the present. You will encounter concepts like Romanticism, modernity, gothic, and postcolonialism through novels, short stories, poetry, and drama from revolutionary France to Meiji era Japan, industrial Britain to the decolonizing Caribbean. Your reading might include Mary Shelley’s gothic novel Frankenstein, Lu Xun’s story of China in transition 'Diary of a Madman', or Clarice Lispector’s haunting meditation on life in Rio de Janeiro The Hour of the Star. You may also replace this module with a language module.

Year Two

Literature in Theory

In your second year, you will study our core module, ‘Literature in Theory’, in which you develop the ideas you explored in ‘Modes of Reading’. This interdisciplinary module asks why and how we study literature. Readings, lectures, and seminars focus on specific themes such as authorship, the literary marketplace, literature in relation to politics, power, data, and the environment, and the relationship of race, gender, sexuality, and class to our study of texts and knowledge. Teaching juxtaposes short theoretical texts with literary and cultural readings, including visual and media texts, such as Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, and Amitav Ghost’s In An Antique Land.

Option on pre-1900 literature

To give your degree historical breadth and depth, we invite students to take one of our many options on pre-1900 literature. The range of modules varies each year, and examples include Romantic and Victorian Poetry, The Nineteenth-Century Novel, Crime Fiction: Nation and Empire, Britain 1850-1947, American Horror Story: US Gothic Cultures 1790-present, Eighteenth-Century Literature, Seventeenth-Century Literature, Austen in Theory, George Eliot and Sociology, Literature and Revolution 1640-1660, Literature and Empire: Britain and the Caribbean to 1900, English Literature and Feminisms 1790-1899, The Classical Tradition in English Translations, Arthurian Literature, Asia and the Victorians.

Your choice

Alongside Literature in Theory and a pre-1900 module, you can choose two further modules from the department on anything you're interested in; and one of these modules can be taken from another department. Our students often enjoy modules in History, Film and Television Studies, Philosophy, Theatre and Performance Studies, the Warwick Writing Program, Warwick Business School, Politics and International Studies, and beyond.

Year Three

Research project

In your final year, you will write a Research Project on a subject of your choice—you might be keen to explore a favourite writer, or a theme or area of research you’ve discovered during your degree. Working with a supervisor who will offer you regular guidance through the year, you will develop your ideas into either a long dissertation OR two shorter essays and immerse yourself in your field. Academic workshops make sure you’re connected to other students on the module and will guide you through the process of identifying your argument, working with sources, and writing research-based essays.

Option on global literature

To ensure your degree covers literature written in English from all over the world, we invite students to take one of our many options on global literature. The range of modules varies each year, and examples include The Global Novel, New Literatures in English, Commodity Fictions: World Literature and World Ecology, Literature and Empire: Britain and the Caribbean to 1900, Twentieth-Century Avant Gardes, Yiddish Literature in Translation, Asia and the Victorians, American Horror Story: US Gothic Cultures 1790-present, Alternative Lifeworlds Fiction: Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Weird, Disasters and the British Contemporary, Devolutionary British Fiction, The Novel Now.

Your choice

Alongside Research Project and a global literature module, you can choose two further modules from the department on anything you're interested in; and one of these modules can be taken from another department. Our students often enjoy modules in History, Film and Television Studies, Philosophy, Theatre and Performance Studies, the Warwick Writing Program, Warwick Business School, Politics and International Studies, and beyond.

5b

• American Horror Story
• The English Nineteenth century Novel
• Literature, Environment, Ecology
• US Writing and Culture, 1780-1920
• Romantic and Victorian Poetry
• Queering the Literary Landscape
• Devolutionary British Fiction
• Ecopoetics
• Shakespeare and Selected Dramatists of his Time
• Crime Fiction
• Alternative Lifeworlds Fiction
• Literature and Empire
• Jane Austen in Theory
• Early Modern Drama
• Women and Writing
• The Classical Tradition