English Literature

Entry requirements

MScR: A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in a relevant subject, normally English literature.

PhD: A UK masters, or its international equivalent, with a mark of at least 65% in your English literature dissertation of at least 10,000 words.

Months of entry

September

Course content

It’s not every graduate who can claim to have earned a degree at the oldest department of English Literature in the world. We first offered courses on ‘rhetoric and belles lettres’ 250 years ago, and have been renowned as a vigorous centre of scholarship, teaching and learning ever since.

At the last Research Assessment Exercise, we were awarded the highest research rating possible, 5*A, making us one of the top three departments of English Literature in the UK.

We have one of the largest graduate offerings in English Literature in the country, with an expansive range of research possibilities. These include each of the main periods of English and Scottish Literature – Medieval, Renaissance/Early Modern, Enlightenment, Romantic, and the 19th and 20th centuries – along with all genres of literary analysis: literary and critical theory, literary history, the history of the book, cultural studies, gender studies, post-colonial literature and American studies. Scottish literature is particularly favoured: we are home to the Centre for Scottish Writing in the 19th Century.

English Literature houses the Centre for the History of the Book and is one of the UK's leading forces in this area. It works closely with the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and with the National Library of Scotland. The latter's recently acquired Murray Archive is crucial for studies in Romanticism, Book History, Bibliography and Archive Studies.

Our interdisciplinary approach also encourages the development of research projects that span various subject areas across our School, the wider University and the cultural life of the city itself.