English Literature BA (Hons)

University of East Anglia

Overview

When you study English Literature at UEA, you’ll gain a first-class grounding in literature from across time and across cultures, while learning to respond to the books you're reading in inventive ways. As a student on our English Literature degree, you’ll also be surrounded by the creative energy of Norwich, known as the ‘City of Stories’.

Whether getting your hands on an early draft of a novel by a world-famous living crime writer or using innovative techniques to bring Shakespeare's contemporaries to life, in your training as a literary critic, you’ll acquire high-level analytical skills and a broad and deep knowledge of writing of all kinds, while honing the craft of critical writing itself. 

Norwich is the ideal place to study literature. It’s been home to ground-breaking writers for centuries, from Julian of Norwich, the first woman to write a book in English, right up to our own award-winning UEA graduates, like Ian McEwan, Emma Healey, and Sir Kazuo Ishiguro. This is just one of the reasons Norwich was chosen as England’s first UNESCO City of Literature.

About This Course

UEA is the place where literature lives. You’ll be part of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, a unique and supportive community of critics, writers, and drama practitioners who are dedicated to bringing literature to life (you can follow our activities on Instagram!). You’ll be studying English Literature in Norwich: a city with both a rich literary tradition and a vibrant contemporary writing scene.

We emphasise choice and flexibility in building your own unique pathway through your English literature degree. You’ll have the chance to discover a wealth of writers, from the classical past right up to poets and novelists writing now. You might explore diverse traditions of writing from across the globe, and you’ll tackle a heady mix of genres: from the gothic to children’s literature, medieval romance to crime writing, early modern women’s writing to modern Japanese fiction. Your journey through literature is shaped by you and your interests – no two UEA English Literature degrees are the same.

All our BA English Literature modules are 100% coursework. This enables you to cultivate the craft of critical writing. You might find yourself honing the perfect essay, or try expressing your ideas in new, experimental forms in one of our creative-critical modules. Or, you might turn your skill with words towards modules on writing as a profession, giving you a flavour of the diverse and exciting careers for which your literary critical training prepares you.

Whatever you study, you’ll work with our world-leading critics, who will help you to develop your own critical voice. UEA’s School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing is famous for innovation in teaching and for cutting-edge research – that’s why in the most recent Times Higher Education Analysis (REF2021), UEA was ranked 19th in the UK for the quality of its research in English Language and Literature. Your lecturers will be passionate about bringing their own expertise into the seminar room.

Your English Literature degree will enable you to become an imaginative and knowledgeable reader of literature, and a confident writer about it. You’ll graduate as a passionate and informed advocate for the literature you love, ready to take all the skills you’ve learnt into a host of careers, from publishing to marketing to the heritage industry. 

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