Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English

Program Overview

Bring rigour to your thinking and advance your powers of engagement with both literary texts and the issues and contexts with which they engage. Develop your skills in analysing literature, learning how writers have responded to their situations, cultures, and the literature of their contemporaries, while gaining the tools and confidence to become an original and discerning critic of literature and of wider world issues.

The BA (Hons) English combines broad coverage of literature across periods and genres with thematic concentrations ranging from ‘Satire, Feeling, Innovation’ to ‘Literature, Land and the Environment’, and regional concentrations including North America and the location of your studies – London.  Throughout there is a distinctive emphasis on how writing not only reflects but influences change in the world, and students are instructed in how to become more discerning, more sceptical and more appreciative readers of everything from lyric poetry to literary criticism to newspaper articles to political speeches. The programme culminates in a Comparative Literature dissertation, which cultivates in students an ability to mediate, to compare impartially, to be culturally agile, and to be scrupulously alert to both the similarities and the differences between art works from across time and space. Students are both inducted in those skills which are central to literary study, and also encouraged to draw on subjects which connect with English, including history, philosophy, psychology, art, and other languages. The programme is therefore rigorous both in its disciplinarity and its interdisciplinarity.

This degree programme combines the comprehensive English syllabus with a personalised elective pathway. Students can choose to deepen their focus on English through their elective courses, or they can further contextualise and broaden their studies with courses that match other interests and goals.

English graduates have strong oral and written communication skills. They combine planning and research with critical thinking, and can clearly evaluate competing perspectives and present ideas to a range of audiences. These fundamental strengths are highly sought after across sectors, and as such open up a wide array of career possibilities upon graduation.