English Literature BA (Hons)

If you choose to study English Literature at Lancaster we will take you on an exciting journey through a vibrant array of authors, genres, historical periods, literary movements, techniques and critical approaches.

We offer a degree that is intellectually stimulating, provides a wide variety of study choice and turns out graduates with excellent employment prospects. According to the most recent National Students Survey (NSS 2018), 98 per cent of our students said that staff are good at explaining things.

You can study writers dating from the middle ages to the present day, and choose genres and periods that particularly appeal to you. Some of the genres you may encounter include science fiction; gothic; utopia; world literature; the graphic novel; travel writing and slave narratives. You’ll discover a wide range of authors, from which could include classics such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte and Oscar Wilde and more modern and contemporary authors such as Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Chinua Achebe, Samuel Beckett, Margaret Atwood, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. Flexibility is built into our degree programme, meaning you can immerse yourself in English Literature or combine it with another complementary subject.

Our academics are passionate about English Literature and they teach our courses from the first year onwards, meaning they are available to help you. In fact, 100% of our students said they were able to contact staff when they needed to (NSS 2018).

English Literature at Lancaster is highly ranked, achieving 8th place in the Complete University Guide 2019 and top 100 in the QS world university league table 2019 (out of 959 universities). Our keen emphasis on employment means you will develop professional skills as part of your studies: we are ranked joint 8th for graduate prospects among English departments in the Complete University Guide 2019. We offer a number of placement and internship opportunities, this could include classroom experience in schools, a short placement in a creative or heritage organisations and internship opportunities, as well as a separate placement year degree.

There is a strong international emphasis to our work and you may have the opportunity to spend your second or third year at one of our prestigious partner universities in the US, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. There may also be opportunities for short study trips.

Careers

Previous graduates of this Department have gone on to successful postgraduate study and careers in professional fields such as publishing, journalism, writing, television and the media, teaching, and librarianship, with some taking up employment overseas.

Our Creative Writing graduates have published their own stories, novels, and poems with major publishers and have had their scripts produced in national festivals and on national radio.

The transferable skills you have the opportunity to develop on this degree – communication, self-expression, research and critical understanding – also open up a wide range of business and public-sector roles in areas such as marketing, advertising, law, social work and professional services.

Other graduates go on to further study, not only in English and Creative Writing, but also in Journalism, Publishing, Law, Public Relations and Business. Our graduates have gone on to train as speech therapists, teachers of English in the UK and overseas, computer programmers and consultants, videogame storywriters, bankers, chartered accountants, personnel managers and social workers.