Explore a range of writers from across the globe and every period of history, from the middle ages right up to the present, with our BA English Literature course.Our English Literature degree will enable you to examine in greater detail authors and genres that you may already know (from tragedy to Gothic, from Shakespeare and Dickens to Plath and Beckett). But it will also introduce you to aspects of literary studies that may be less familiar to you, from children's literature to publishing studies and the history of the book. Our academics have published research on everything from medieval poetry to contemporary American fiction, and they will help you to develop your own literary enthusiasms.Our first year core modules ensure that all of our students have the advanced skills in literary analysis necessary for undergraduate work. We explore the different ways that literary texts respond to their cultural context (Genre and Context) we trace the development of poetry in English over time and across the globe (Poetry in English) we examine how literary texts accrue new meanings in the process of interpretation (Research and Criticism). You can take additional modules in other subjects in your first year, but you also have the option to study creative writing non-fiction persuasive writing, or twentieth-century American literature. In the second year, you choose modules that range from Renaissance lyric poetry to contemporary fiction.