BA (Hons) English and Comparative Literature (Including Foundation Year)

Our four-year BA English and Comparative Literature (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance. This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module. Our BA English and Comparative Literature offers a unique opportunity to explore English literature alongside writings from across the globe, both in English and in translation. You deepen your knowledge of literary traditions and movements across a variety of genres in order to develop your skills as a reader and to sharpen your critical intelligence. You cover topics including: US and Caribbean Literature, Modern Literature, Petrarch and the English Imagination and The Victorians. There is also the opportunity to benefit from seminars, lectures and events from all the disciplines available in the department, including film studies, drama and theatre studies, creative writing and journalism.Essex has nurtured a long tradition of distinguished writers whose work has shaped literature as we know it today, from past giants such as the American poets Robert Lowell and Ted Berrigan, to contemporary writers such as mythographer and novelist Dame Marina Warner, and Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri.