English Literature

Course summary

Unit 1: Literary Genres The aim of this unit is to introduce candidates to aspects of the genre of Tragedy. Texts have been selected and grouped together to enable students to understand the roots of the literary genre as well as how the genre has developed. Students study three texts: Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’, Miller’s play ‘Death of a Salesman’ and a selection of the poetry of Keats. Unit 2: Texts and Genres This unit introduces candidates to the more modern genre of crime writing and texts wherein a transgressive act is the driving narrative force. This genre, which is heavily influenced by culture and society, is continually evolving and allows students to analyze and interpret more modern texts as well as older texts in new and interesting ways. Students study a broad range of transgressive fiction to deepen their appreciation of genre nuances, as well as three set texts: one post-2000 prose text (Kate Atkinson’s ‘When Will There Be Good News?’), Coleridge’s narrative poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, and Agatha Christie’s novel, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. Unit 3: Theory and Independence This unit is designed to allow students to read widely and develop their skills as critical, crafted writers of extended essays. Students are guided in the choice of their own academically challenging texts and coached in the understanding that the contemporary study of Literature needs to be informed by the fact that different theoretical and critical methods can be applied to the subject. Students write about two different literary texts (one poetry text and one prose) through their choice of critical perspectives such as Marxism, Feminism, Literary Value, Post Colonialism, and Ecocriticism.