Program Overview

---

BA English Literature

Overview

Course overview

Study at a university ranked sixth in the UK for English language and literature (QS World University Rankings 2024). Explore the rich literary history and current creative scene of Manchester, recently designated UNESCO City of Literature. Study more than 1,000 years of English writing. Engage with literary and cultural theory, study texts in their historical contexts and reflect on different cultures and traditions. Gain insight into a breadth of written forms, from illuminated manuscripts to graphic novels and poetry to postmodern fiction.

Entry requirements

A-level

• AAA including grade A in English Literature or English Language and Literature
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.
• Applicants taking A Levels are normally expected to offer three full A Levels. If you’re taking more than three A Levels, these won’t be included in your offer. We will only make offers consisting of three A Levels.

A-level contextual offer

• ABB including grade A in English Literature or English Language and Literature
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.
• Applicants taking A Levels are normally expected to offer three full A Levels. If you’re taking more than three A Levels, these won’t be included in your offer. We will only make offers consisting of three A Levels.

UK refugee/care-experienced offer

• ABC including grade A in English Literature or English Language and Literature
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.
• Applicants taking A Levels are normally expected to offer three full A Levels. If you’re taking more than three A Levels, these won’t be included in your offer. We will only make offers consisting of three A Levels.

International Baccalaureate

• 36 points overall. 6,6,6 in Higher Level subjects including English Literature or English Language and Literature.

GCSE/IGCSE

• Applicants must demonstrate a broad general education including acceptable levels of Literacy and Numeracy, equivalent to at least Grade 6 or B in GCSE/IGCSE English Language and Grade 4 or C in Mathematics. GCSE/IGCSE English Literature will not be accepted in lieu of GCSE/IGCSE English Language.

Other entry requirements

• Other entry requirements exist for this course. You may view these by selecting from the list below.
• Scottish requirements
• Welsh Baccalaureate
• Foundation year
• Pearson BTEC qualifications
• OCR Cambridge Technical qualifications
• Access to HE Diploma
• T Level
• Extended Project Qualification (EPQ)

Fees and funding

Fees

• Fees for entry in 2026 have not yet been set. For entry in 2025 the tuition fees were £9,535 per annum for home students, and are expected to increase slightly for 2026 entry.

Policy on additional costs

• All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application.

Scholarships/sponsorships

• Find out more from student finance
• Eligible UK students can apply for bursaries and scholarships
• Funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages
• Many students work part-time or complete a student internship

Application and selection

How to apply

• Apply through UCAS

Advice to applicants

• Potential candidates are expected to demonstrate why they have chosen this particular degree in their personal statement and express why the course interests them.

Home-schooled applicants

• If you are a student who has followed a non-standard educational route, e.g. you have been educated at home; your application will be considered against the standard entry criteria of the course for which you are applying. You will be required to demonstrate that you meet the specified academic entry requirements of the course.

Non-standard educational routes

• Mature students are some of our most well-equipped learners, bringing skills and attributes gained from work, family and other life experiences. Students come from a whole array of backgrounds, study every kind of course, undertake full-time and part-time learning and are motivated by career intentions as well as personal interest.

How your application is considered

• Applications are considered on the basis of an assessment of the quality of the personal statement, the reference, and past and predicted academic achievements.

Skills, knowledge, abilities, interests

• We like to see evidence of transferable skills, for example:
  • time management;
  • team work;
  • independent work;
  • critical and analytical abilities.

Course details

Course description

• A BA in English Literature will help you explore a range of texts. They date from the Anglo-Saxon era to the present day. You'll get to explore many texts and genres. They range from illuminated manuscripts to graphic novels, and from poetry to postmodern fiction. These materials come from the English-speaking world and beyond.

Special features

• Placement year option
• Study abroad
• Literature events
• Meet like-minded students

Teaching and learning

• In Years 1 and 2, you will be taught mainly through lectures and seminars.
• Lectures provide essential knowledge and identify key questions which are then discussed further in seminars.
• Seminar groups usually meet once a week and numbers are kept as low as possible so that you can get to know one another and have a chance to develop and share your ideas.

Coursework and assessment

• You will be assessed using a variety of formats, including:
  • written examinations;
  • coursework essays;
  • research reports;
  • practical tests;
  • learning logs;
  • web contributions;
  • oral presentations;
  • final-year thesis.

Course content for year 1

• The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
• Title| Code| Credit rating| Mandatory/optional
  • Reading Literature | ENGL10021 | 20 | Mandatory
  • Mapping the Medieval | ENGL10051 | 20 | Mandatory
  • Theory and Text | ENGL10062 | 20 | Mandatory
  • Literature and History | ENGL10072 | 20 | Mandatory
  • English Literature Tutorials | ENGL10171 | 20 | Mandatory

Course content for year 2

• The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
• Title| Code| Credit rating| Mandatory/optional
  • American Literature and Social Criticism, 1900-Present | AMER20481 | 20 | Optional
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin as Global Media Event | AMER22662 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL20001 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL20002 | 20 | Optional
  • Chaucer: Texts, Contexts, Conflicts | ENGL20231 | 20 | Optional
  • Shakespeare | ENGL20372 | 20 | Optional
  • Gender, Sexuality and the Body: Theories and Histories | ENGL20482 | 20 | Optional
  • Writing, Identity and Nation | ENGL20491 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Poetry | ENGL20901 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Poetry | ENGL20902 | 20 | Optional
  • Medieval Metamorphoses | ENGL21022 | 20 | Optional
  • Renaissance Literature | ENGL21151 | 20 | Optional
  • Old English: Writing the Unreadable Past | ENGL21161 | 20 | Optional
  • Satire and Sentiment: British Literature, 1660–1820 | ENGL21181 | 20 | Optional
  • Modernism | ENGL21192 | 20 | Optional
  • Romanticism (1776 - 1832) | ENGL21521 | 20 | Optional
  • Introduction to Screenwriting | ENGL21951 | 20 | Optional
  • Victorian Rights: Victorian Wrongs | ENGL22102 | 20 | Optional

Course content for year 3

• The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
• Title| Code| Credit rating| Mandatory/optional
  • Love American Style | AMER30162 | 20 | Optional
  • Occupy Everything | AMER30422 | 20 | Optional
  • Climate Change & Culture Wars | AMER30571 | 20 | Optional
  • American Hauntings | AMER30811 | 20 | Optional
  • James Baldwin in Context: Race, Sexuality and Activism | AMER32271 | 20 | Optional
  • Novel Democracy | AMER33131 | 20 | Optional
  • Long Essay | ENGL30001 | 20 | Optional
  • Long Essay | ENGL30002 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL30121 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Fiction | ENGL30122 | 20 | Optional
  • Culture and Conflict: Neoliberalism and Cultural Production | ENGL30261 | 20 | Optional
  • Creative Writing: Poetry | ENGL30902 | 20 | Optional
  • Irish Fiction Since 1990 | ENGL30941 | 20 | Optional
  • Radical Turns: Culture and Politics in the 1930s | ENGL31141 | 20 | Optional
  • Crossing Over with Tilda Swinton: Feminist and Queer Readings of Cinema, Politics and Culture | ENGL31241 | 20 | Optional
  • Apocalypse: Early Modern Imaginings | ENGL31271 | 20 | Optional
  • Queer Forms: Objects and Animals in Eighteenth-Century Poetry | ENGL31282 | 20 | Optional
  • Dreaming the Middle Ages | ENGL31422 | 20 | Optional
  • Things that Talk: Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture | ENGL31622 | 20 | Optional
  • Culture and Politics in the Contemporary British Novel | ENGL32301 | 20 | Optional
  • British Fiction and Empire in the Twentieth Century | ENGL32552 | 20 | Optional
  • Sex, Disease and the Body: | ENGL33082 | 20 | Optional
  • Romantic Venice | ENGL34072 | 20 | Optional
  • Co-operation, Competition, and Happiness: Dangerous Ideas in Victorian Britain | ENGL34081 | 20 | Optional
  • Crime and Contemporary Culture | ENGL34092 | 20 | Optional
  • Global Victorians | ENGL34101 | 20 | Optional
  • Vital Matters: Medieval Ecologies | ENGL34111 | 20 | Optional
  • Humans and other Animals in Contemporary Literature | ENGL34122 | 20 | Optional
  • Women’s Writing, Citizenship, and Political Radicalism | ENGL34132 | 20 | Optional
  • Contemporary South Asian Literatures | ENGL34151 | 20 | Optional
  • Imaginations of the Future: People, Earth and Power | ENGL34171 | 20 | Optional
  • Interdisciplinary Literature and Theology: Empathy, Ethics, Liberation | ENGL35111 | 20 | Optional
  • Confronting Marginality | ENGL35312 | 20 | Optional

Facilities

The John Rylands Library

• Home to one of the world's richest and most unique collections of manuscripts, maps, works of art, and objects.

The Centre for New Writing

• The University boasts a writing centre with award-winning teachers. Notable names include Kamila Shamsie and Jeanette Winterson CBE, both Granta Best Young British Novelists.

The University of Manchester Library

• One of only five National Research Libraries; you'll have access to our internationally renowned archival collections which range from the medieval period to the present day.

Careers

Career opportunities

• All our courses have your future in mind - whether that's further study or starting a career.
• We design our degrees to equip you with strong critical analysis skills, the ability to articulate knowledge of concepts and theories, and the ability to work and think independently, critically, and creatively, providing you with a set of versatile skills that are highly desired by a wide range of employers.

Regulated by the Office for Students

• The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website.