Overview
You will read widely and write every week - roughly an essay a week in the first two years - and discuss your work in tutorials with the scholars who edit and write about these texts.
The course moves chronologically through the first two years and then opens up into options on genre, theory, creative writing and literatures in English from around the world.
- 1 essayA week, discussed in tutorial
- 40Final-year options
- 2Student literary magazines
Course structure
The outline below shows a typical path through the course. Options change a little each year as tutors join and research moves on.
Year 1
- Old and Middle English
- Shakespeare
- Literature, 1660-1830
- Introduction to Criticism
Year 2
- The Victorians
- Modernism
- Two options, e.g. Poetry and Place, The Gothic
- Creative writing workshop (optional)
Year 3
- Literature since 1945
- Two special options
- Dissertation of 10,000 words
How you will learn
You will have two tutorials a week with one or two other students, where you discuss the essay or problem set you wrote that week with a tutor. Lectures, seminars of ten to twelve students and practical classes fill the rest of the week. Each student has a personal tutor for the whole degree.
Assessment
Timed papers, portfolios of essays and a dissertation. Creative work can make up to a quarter of the final-year assessment.
Entry requirements
- A levels: A*AA, including English Literature
- International Baccalaureate: 39 points, with 7 in Higher Level English
- One piece of marked written work
We make contextual offers, typically one grade lower, to applicants from schools that send few students to university. If your qualifications are not listed, the admissions office will tell you what we would expect.
Fees and funding
Tuition for 2027-28 is $38,400 a year, including college membership. Under the Aldermere Promise, students from families earning under $85,000 a year pay no tuition, and partial awards continue up to $150,000. Every undergraduate also receives a $2,000 grant each year for books, travel and equipment.
Careers
Graduates of this programme go on to a wide range of careers. Recent destinations include:
- Publishing and editing
- Journalism and broadcasting
- Advertising and communications
- Teaching
- Law
- Arts administration
My tutor made me defend every adjective. I have never written so little, so well.
Ruth Adebayo Final year
Questions
Can I change programme after I arrive?
Yes, at the end of the first year, if there is space on the programme you want to move to and your tutors agree. Around one student in twenty does.
Is there an interview?
Yes. Shortlisted applicants have a conversation of about twenty-five minutes with two tutors in December, in person or online. It is about how you think, not what you have memorised.
