English Literature

Course summary

This course allows you to develop your love and understanding of a range of literature across time. You will read, discuss and actively explore six set texts, learning the skills of analysis necessary to offer your own critical interpretations of these, plus unseen prose and poetry. You will also have the exciting opportunity to follow your own literary interests by choosing two texts to study in a piece of comparative coursework. The texts we study have been carefully chosen to allow insight into the craft of writing, but also to inspire and entertain you. You will be challenged to consider writers’ methods and how the texts they produce are very much a product of their particular contexts. From the poetry of Henry VIII’s court, through the horrors of WW1 and the excesses of the Jazz Age, this course, above all else, explores human nature in all its spectacular guises. Lessons will centre around the reading and discussion of set texts. You will have the opportunity to offer your individual insights but will often collaborate with others to develop these further. You will explore the contexts of the literature studied through documentaries, radio and film. Wherever possible, you will be offered the chance to enjoy literature performed on the stage. A vital part of your learning will take place outside lessons, as you read and research literature in more depth, offering these insights during lessons to enhance the learning of all. It is widely recognised by universities and employers that the skills developed through the study of English Literature are among the most transferable. Many of the skills developed are related to independent thinking – the ability to analyse sophisticated ideas and the ways in which they are presented to synthesise large and complex texts, and to know how to build a convincing argument. The range of careers that could be developed following this could be: Publishing, Marketing, PR, Journalism, Law, Teaching, Acting and Politics. WHY STUDY IT?