English Literature BA (Hons)

The University of Buckingham is:<br/>- Home of the two-year degree, the University of Buckingham, based in the South East of England, is ranked 6th for Student Satisfaction in the UK (National Student Survey, 2020).<br/><br/><br/>- We are proudly independent and not-for-profit, and offer courses in Allied Health, Business, Computing, Education, Humanities, Law, Medicine, Psychology and Security and Intelligence. We are one of the few universities in the UK that offer September and January start dates for almost all of our courses.<br/><br/><br/>- Based in Buckingham on a riverside campus, we are only 20 minutes’ from Milton Keynes central station and a short drive from Bicester, Aylesbury, Banbury and Northampton. There is free parking on-site and we are within easy reach of London and Oxford.<br/><br/><br/>- Our award-winning small class tutorials ensure every student is known by name and supported throughout their studies, including by dedicated personal tutors.<br/><br/><br/>- As pioneers of the two-year degree, we offer a condensed version of the traditional three-year degree, meaning you can gain a full honours degree and complete your studies a whole year earlier. Alternatively, you can complete both your undergraduate and master’s degree with us in just three years: saving you time and money.<br/><br/><br/>English Literature here is taught to small groups by energetic and enthusiastic staff, led by Oxford-trained academics with international research profiles in 19th- and 20th-century studies. Ideas developed in core seminars are taken forward in weekly small-group tutorials, where half a dozen students are encouraged to discuss and interpret specific passages of writing, under the watchful guidance of their tutor.<br/><br/>Our students are expected to read widely, and to develop strong lines of argument and personal responses to what they find, anchored in an informed understanding of the discipline and with reference to the critical debates that animate it. We believe, as Jeanette Winterson says, that ‘learning how to read deeply – and that means diverse and sometimes difficult texts – trains the brain and improves your sense of self. Learning how to write, even reasonably well, gives fluency to the rest of life’.<br/><br/>The degree is structured around a combination of period study, thematic study, and modules inculcating theoretical and practical skills. Victorian literature modules cover prose from Dickens to Gaskell, and poetry from Browning to Hardy; 20th-century literature topics range from Rhys, Hurston, Woolf, and Plath to Hemingway, Forster, Larkin, and Beckett. Shakespeare is one central focus. Other earlier writers who are studied include Marlowe, Donne, Webster, Herbert, Milton, Dryden, Centlivre, Swift, Pope, Blake, Wordsworth, Austen, Keats, and Shelley. Thematic study encourages students to analyse contextually based on sociological variations, gender, contemporary politics, and psychological influences. We encourage the understanding of contemporary literary and cultural theory while never losing sight of the values of liberal / aesthetic education.<br/><br/>This is the 3-year format of the BA degree (UCAS code Q321), which allows you the traditional summer break. Starting each September, there are 3 terms per year, leading to an assessment period in early June. Then the summer is free, before the return for the new academic year in late September. This allows you more time for reading and reflection. <br/><br/>Our recent graduates have gone on to pursue careers in the media, creative writing, teaching, academia, business, and marketing.