2026/27 Undergraduate Programme Catalogue

BA English Literature

Programme overview

Programme code: BA-ENGL/LIT
UCAS code: Q306
Duration: 3 Years
Method of Attendance: Full Time
Programme manager: Dr Sam Durrant
Contact address: s.r.durrant@leeds.ac.uk
Total credits: 360
School/Unit responsible for the parenting of students and programme: School of English
Examination board through which the programme will be considered: School of English
Relevant QAA Subject Benchmark Groups: English Studies

Entry requirements

Entry Requirements are available on the Course Search entry

Programme specification

Course Overview:
Reading and understanding literature can help us to find out about ourselves and see the world from other perspectives. Through engaging with different kinds of texts from across the globe and from different periods of history, you will learn how language reflects and shapes human experience. You’ll also develop your skills as a critical reader, a clear thinker, and a persuasive writer. 

Effective communication drives the world. Studying English at Leeds prepares you for an exciting, rewarding and fulfilling professional future. Graduates often pursue careers in media, publishing, journalism, education, the cultural industries and creative arts, or enter fields including management, marketing, and business, where strong analytical skills are prized.

Taught by world-leading academics, you’ll develop a nuanced understanding of literatures in English from the medieval to the present moment, and from the local to the global. Our English Literature degree offers a comprehensive and inclusive exploration of different periods, genres, and cultures. Our modules explore themes relevant to how we live today, including race and ethnicity, gender, climate change and nature, social class, disability, and wellbeing. 

A foundational first year will develop your ability to read critically and write with flair, precision, and persuasion. You’ll also explore the diversity and range of literatures in English. Second year will deepen your understanding of literature’s relationship to the environment and to the self, whilst consolidating your knowledge of the breadth and range of the subject. At Level 3, you will build your expertise through choosing from a range of specialist option modules taught by cutting-edge researchers. A final year project on a topic of your choice will allow you to sharpen and confirm your own distinctive critical voice.

Course Details
At Level 1, you will take Reading Between the Lines and Writing Matters, introducing you to university-level study, equipping you to read critically and write with rigour and persuasion. A further compulsory module on Race, Writing and Decolonisation, reflecting the School’s commitment to decolonising literary studies, looks at literary representations of race and racism from around the world. Optional modules focus on poetry, fiction and drama. You may also take Discovery modules from across the University.

At Level 2, you will take two core modules, Writing Environments and Body Language. These modules explore two urgent contemporary challenges, the climate crisis and how we navigate the relationship between the body and the mind. Students will also select four further modules from a choice of eight, ranging historically and geographically from Medieval to Contemporary, and from Postcolonial to American. Level 2 will deepen and enrich subject knowledge, alongside intellectual and academic skills, preparing you for more independent learning.
After your second year of study, students may apply for transfer to an International Degree at one of a wide range of universities with which the University of Leeds has established connections. Alternatively, they may spend a year in industry on a work placement as an optional third year of their degree programme.

At Level 3, you have free choice of a wide range of specialist modules taught by the School’s world-leading researchers. These modules, which focus on particular writers, genres, political issues, and cultural debates, will help you develop and refine the active research and writing skills which you will demonstrate in your final year project. This sustained and extended piece of work may be a dissertation or a textual edition, and it will be guided by an academic supervisor. The Final Year Project is the capstone achievement of your degree in English Literature, consolidating and enhancing the skills of project planning, research initiative and self-motivation which are highly valued by future employers.

Year 1

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable

Compulsory Modules

At Level 1, candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules: 

Code	Title	Credits	Semester
ENGL1065	Reading Between the Lines	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ENGL1110	Literature, Culture and Critique	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ENGL1855	Race, Writing and Decolonization	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Optional Modules

Candidates may select 20-60 credits of modules from the following optional modules. Alternatively, they may take up to 40 credits of Discovery modules in place of two of the option modules.

Code	Title	Credits	Semester
ENGL1070	Drama: Text and Performance	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)
ENGL1221	Modern Fictions in English: Conflict, Liminality, Translation	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ENGL1261	Poetry: Reading and Interpretation	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)

Discovery Modules

Candidates may take up to 40 credits of Discovery modules in place of two of the optional modules.

Year 2

[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable

Compulsory Modules

At Level 2, candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ENGL2030	Writing Environments: Literature, Nature, Culture	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ENGL2045	Body Language: Literature and Embodiment	20	Semester 2 (Jan to Jun)

Optional Modules

Candidates will also be required to choose four optional modules from the following six baskets. They may not select more than one module from each basket. Alternatively, they may take up to 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of one of the option modules.

Basket 1:

Code	Title	Credits	Semester	Pass for Progression
ENGL2029	Renaissance Literature	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)
ENGL2144	Life, Love and Death from Chaucer to Marlowe	20	Semester 1 (Sep to Jan)