BA English

This programme aims to provide a historically-based overview of the literature of all periods, together with opportunities to specialise in particular periods of literature, in modern English language, and in non-period courses. Students are encouraged to develop their own interests and may choose from a wide variety of specialisms.

The first year of the English BA acts as a foundation for the two following years, covering major narrative texts from the Renaissance to the present, background texts from Homer to Freud and Barthes, Anglo-Saxon and medieval writings and the study of critical method.

In the second and third years you will study compulsory courses on Chaucer and Shakespeare, and will choose six further courses from a wide range of options. American Literature and literature in English from other countries outside Europe feature strongly on several courses and attention is paid to the study of film.

First Year

The first-year course consists of four components which taken together constitute a foundation for the further study of English Literature: Narrative Texts, Introduction to Medieval Language and Literature, Intellectual and Cultural Sources, and Criticism. Single honours students follow all these courses, while Modern Language Plus students follow the Narrative Texts course and either Criticism or Introduction to Medieval Language and Literature.

Second and Third Years

The following courses run yearly:

Chaucer Core Course - Year Two
Shakespeare Core Course - Year Three
Critical Commentary and Analysis

Students then select six further courses across the two years of study. The following courses are running in 2012-13:

Literary Linguistics
London in Literature
Middle English I
Modern English Language
Modern Literature I
Old English I
Old Icelandic
Renaissance Literature
The Victorian Period

The following courses ran in 2011-12 and will run again in 2013-14:

American Literature to 1890
History of the Language since Chaucer
Literary Representations and the History of Homosexuality
Middle English II
Modern Literature II
Old English II
Restoration and the Eighteenth-Century
The Romantic Period