BA (Hons) English and American Literature

About

The writers of Britain and America are deeply connected. Often, they employ the same language, address the same readers, and share the same cultural reference points. But at the same time, the two traditions differ sharply in their typical values and tones of voice. This programme allows you to experience these continuities and distinctions.

In your study of English literature, you’ll have the chance to discover a wealth of writers from Chaucer to the present day – from medieval romance via Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, the Brontës, and James Joyce, to novelists and poets who are still writing now. You’ll explore diverse traditions from across the globe and tackle a heady mix of genres, which currently range from epic to children’s literature, crime writing to lyric poetry, tragedy to biography. You might find yourself honing the perfect essay, experimenting with new forms of critical writing in one of our creative-critical modules, or gaining experience of careers like journalism or publishing which draw on your literary training.

You’ll also be studying the landmarks of American literature, exploring how Americans formed their sense of identity through their literary traditions from the 19th century to the present. Alongside writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson you'll read abolitionist works by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass. Towards the end of the century, you'll discover contemporaries of Mark Twain, Henry James and Edith Wharton such as Charles Chesnutt and Pauline Hopkins. You'll explore the vibrancy of American modernism – from Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald to the Harlem Renaissance. If you choose to explore further in the twentieth century, you'll reach the dizzy heights of postmodernism all the while keeping up with the radical decolonising work of writers like Leslie Marmon Silko and Nobel-prize winner Toni Morrison. You’ll have the chance to immerse yourself in both the big canonical American classics and in areas that are unique, contemporary, interdisciplinary, or cutting-edge.

You’ll be studying in a UNESCO City of Literature with a vibrant contemporary writing scene. You will also have the opportunity to spend your third year studying in America or Canada with an option to spend a semester in Australia, New Zealand, or Hong Kong.