Entry requirements
A level
Specific subjects/grades required for entry: English Literature at grade A or English - Language & Literature at grade A. Specific subjects excluded for entry: General Studies and Critical Thinking. Information: Applicants taking Science A-levels that include a practical component will be required to take and pass this as a condition of entry. This refers only to English A Levels.
Access to HE Diploma
We require 60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at level 3 (or equivalent). Applicants may be required to meet additional subject-specific requirements for particular courses at Durham.
Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal
To include English Literature
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
To include 6, 6, 6 from Higher Level subjects to include English.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Subject specific A-levels (or equivalent) may be required.
Scottish Advanced Higher
Specific subjects/grades required for entry: English at grade A.
Scottish Higher
We will normally make offers based on Advanced Highers. If an applicant has not been able to take 3 Advanced Highers, offers may be made with a combination of Advanced Highers and Highers, or on a number of Highers.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
Single Honours in English Studies offers a comprehensive syllabus, which combines traditional areas of literary study with new and developing areas of the discipline. It aims to develop your conceptual abilities and analytical skills by exposing you to a variety of literary critical approaches, to promote and develop clarity and persuasiveness in argument and expression, and to enable you to develop, to a high degree of competence, a range of skills which are subject-specific and transferable. A Degree in English Studies will equip you for a wide variety of professions and employment, as well as for advanced postgraduate study of English and related disciplines.
**Year 1**
There are three compulsory modules in Year 1 – Introduction to Drama, Introduction to the Novel, and Introduction to Poetry – each of which introduces you to representative works in the major literary genres. There are also four optional modules, from which Single Honours students may select one, two or three. Previously these have offered the possibility to study important influences on English literature (Classical and Biblical Backgrounds to English Literature), early literature (Romance and the Literature of Chivalry and Myth and Epic of the North) and the history of the English language (English: Language, Use, Theory).
This year will focus on advancing skills of critical analysis and argument you have already acquired at A Level, critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, such as the awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and of the affective power of language, and on the introduction of more advanced concepts and theories relating to literature.
Compulsory modules:
Introduction to Drama
Introduction to the Novel
Introduction to Poetry.
Optional modules:
Up to three of the following selected from a range which has previously included (or up to two open modules offered by other departments):
Romance and the Literature of Chivalry
Myth and Epic of the North
Classical and Biblical Backgrounds to English Literature
English: Language, Use, Theory.
**Study Abroad**
You may apply to study abroad for an additional year between Levels 2 and 3 (transferring from BA Hons in English Literature to BA Hons English Literature with a Year Abroad). Supported by the International Office and the Department’s International Co-ordinator, you can put yourself forward for the following study abroad options:
**The Overseas Exchange programme** (university-wide links with institutions in North America, the Far East, Australasia, and so on). A list of the University’s current partners is available here: https://www.durham.ac.uk/international/studyabroad/exchange/outgoing/partnerunis/
**The Erasmus programme** (Departmental link with universities in EU countries).
For more information on this course, please see our website.
Modules
Year 1 Modules:
Compulsory modules:
Introduction to Drama
Introduction to the Novel
Introduction to Poetry.
Optional modules:
Up to three of the following selected from a range which has previously included (or up to two open modules offered by other departments):
Romance and the Literature of Chivalry
Myth and Epic of the North
Classical and Biblical Backgrounds to English Literature
English: Language, Use, Theory.
Year 2 Modules:
Compulsory modules:
Shakespeare
Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism
Optional lecture modules (taught by weekly lectures and four one-hour tutorials) have previously included:
Chaucer
Old English
Old Norse
Old French
Renaissance Literature
Victorian Literature
Literature of the Modern Period
American Poetry.
Optional seminar modules (taught by fortnightly two-hour seminars) have previously included:
Jane Austen
Arthurian Literature
Germanic Myth and Legend
The Australian Legend
Toni Morrison: Texts and Contexts
The Brontës
Evelyn Waugh
Shakespeare’s History Plays
Romantic Plays and Players.
Year 3 Modules:
Compulsory modules:
Dissertation (40 credits).
Optional lecture modules (taught by weekly lectures and four one-hour tutorials) have previously included:
Old English
Old Norse
Old French
Restoration and 18th Century Literature
Literature of the Romantic Period
Post-War Fiction and Poetry
American Fiction
Medieval Literature.
Optional Special Topics (taught by fortnightly two-hour seminars) have previously included:
Literature, Cinema and Neuroscience
Shakespeare on Film
Resistance in South Asian Postcolonial Literature
Writing Prose Fiction
Reading Joyce’s Ulysses
W. B. Yeats
Keats and Shelley
Elizabeth Bishop and Twentieth Century Verse
Nonsense Literature
Creative Writing Poetry
Writing Mountains in the Early Twentieth Century
Seamus Heaney
Jewish American Fiction
Science and the Literary Imagination
Mind and Narrative.
Please note that the list of optional modules available in any year will vary depending on available teaching staff. The lists above provide an example of the type of modules which may be offered.
Tuition fees
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Trevelyan College
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Hatfield College
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English Studies
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