English Literature

Offering extensive options in both English literature and creative writing, this course helps you pursue your passion for the written word.

Pioneering research shapes our teaching. You will benefit from our extensive knowledge and expertise as you study an exciting range of writing, drama, and screen media. You will have a choice to focus either on literature or creative writing. Each option includes individual supervision as well as larger classes, visiting lectures and workshops by published authors.

This course is the perfect route towards employment or further study. Graduates have secured positions in teaching, lecturing, film production, publishing, journalism and creative writing, bookselling, librarianship, the media, public relations, archival work, marketing, advertising, and arts administration.

For further course details please see "Course Web Page".

Subjects taught

Year one
• Critical Theory and Research Methods
• Debates in Modern English Literary Studies
• Themes in Irish Writing In English

Optional Modules
• Creative Writing Project
• Penned in the Margins: Writing, Identity, Alterity
• Special Author / Topic in English
• Writing and Creativity
• Dissertation

Entry requirements

Standard entry conditions
To apply to our postgraduate taught programmes, you must meet the University’s General Entrance Requirements and any course-specific requirements.

Entry Requirements
Applicants must normally have gained an upper second class honours degree or better in English Literature or a related discipline, but applicants with a lower second class degree may also be considered. The degree held must be from a university of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, from the Council for National Academic Awards, the National Council for Educational Awards, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, or from an institution of another country which has been recognised as being of an equivalent standard. Applicants may alternatively hold an equivalent standard (normally 50%) in a Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate, Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma or an approved alternative qualification. They must provide evidence of competence in written and spoken English (GCSE grade C or equivalent).

In exceptional circumstances, where an individual has substantial and significant experiential learning, a portfolio of written evidence demonstrating the meeting of graduate qualities (including subject-specific outcomes, as determined by the Course Committee) may be considered as an alternative entrance route. Evidence used to demonstrate graduate qualities may not be used for exemption against modules within the programme.

Application dates

Your Application
Application is through the University's online application system (see "Application Weblink").

Enrolment dates

Start Date: September 2024

Post Course Info

Career options
Students graduating with the MA in English Literature are well-prepared to undertake a variety of occupations, both those related directly to the nature of literary study as an academic discipline and to the subject-specific skills acquired in the course of the programme, and those of a more generally defined postgraduate-level variety.