Curious about studying English Literature: Victorian Literature, Art and Culture MAat Royal Holloway, University of London? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
MA - Master of Arts
Royal Holloway, University of London
Full Time
Sep 2026
1 Year
You will explore canonical Victorian texts, including by authors such as Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Arthur Conan Doyle, and George Eliot, alongside other important nineteenth-century writings and artworks that may be less familiar to you. This combination will allow you to explore significant events and ideas from diverse perspectives, from the heart of Dickensian London to colonial outposts in India, Australia, and the Arctic; from the painters of fashionable life to the panic surrounding the Whitechapel murders; from nineteenth-century periodicals to Neo-Victorian re-imaginings of the past. Our modules examine nineteenth-century literary and artistic works – novels, poetry, short fiction, criticism, paintings, visual culture, and life-writing – that engage with Victorianism within Britain and from other perspectives beyond national and imperial boundaries.
This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.
This module aims to provide an advanced understanding of the complex field of aestheticism in nineteenth-century literature and culture, with particular attention to concepts of ?decadence? and the relationship between the written word and the visual arts. Classes cover key theoretical and critical interventions into nineteenth-century aesthetic debates, from Ruskin and Pater through to Oscar Wilde and selected women writers of the 1880s and 1890s.
This will be a piece of original written work, of between 12,000 and 15,000 words. The topic of the dissertation will be agreed between you and whichever member of staff is allotted as your supervisor and is normally required to be submitted by the beginning of September in the year of the completion of the programme.
This module is designed to introduce you to a number of key topics related to the methods of postgraduate research, and to some of the resources and materials that will be useful to your studies.
This module aims to equip you with a systematic understanding of the scope and range of the mid nineteenth-century novel in the context of Victorian publishing, reading and critical practices. In the first half, you will read three Dickens novels in depth, and while in the second half you will concentrate on theories of realism and the 19th Century novel. The module seeks to integrate reflections on recent critical approaches to the texts in order to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the critical techniques and discourses that will be applicable to your own advanced scholarship in the assessed essay and final dissertation.
This module aims to equip you with a systematic understanding of the scope and range of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement in the context of Victorian art criticism, attitudes to gender and poetics. The first five-week block concentrates on poetry and the visual arts in the first decade of the movement; the second five-week block deals with the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites and their links with Aestheticism.
This module provides a point of coherence for the interdisciplinary study of Victorian Culture. You will be introduced to the theories and methods of a variety of humanities disciplines through the medium of an in-depth study of the literature, history, geography, and visual culture of nineteenth-century London. You will be asked to reflect critically on your own approach to the material studied, through engagement with both primary materials and a variety of recent secondary sources.
3.9At Royal Holloway, University of London, postgraduate students join a community of forward-thinkers and game-changers, p...
