Overview
Gain expertise on tailored modules across a range of genres and periods with experienced tutors
Our MA English Literature provides you with a broad experience of English Literature, from the Early Modern to Contemporary Writing. Each module offers an expansive opportunity for you to engage with a wide range of writers and writing.
You will decide your own research focus and be given expert guidance for your assessment. The courses also focus on current critical approaches to literary and cultural texts and offer you diverse methods for researching in the humanities.
On this course you will:
- Gain expertise on focused modules that explore a range of genres and periods with experienced tutors.
- Hone your skills in analysis, critical writing, project planning, self-reflection, and presentation delivery.
- Work in the rich literary and cultural environment of the University, which includes the Sussex Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction, the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, and the Chichester Centre for Critical and Creative Writing, and the cultural resources of the city of Chichester.
- Pursue personalised research with close tuition guidance in your own chosen research area.
- Open a path into future high-level careers or into further research.
You will develop capabilities in focused academic writing, exploring specialist subjects in depth, and the ability to complete guided research work across a diverse range of literary fields and critical approaches.
The Course
Enhance your knowledge of English Literature on tailored modules taught by experts
The MA English Literature aims to provide students with critical and analytic knowledge of the broad field of English Literature, specifically including literature from the Early Modern to the Contemporary.
Within our structured modules, you will be given the opportunity to write on the texts and period that interests you, in relation to the broad concerns of the module.
You will also explore critical and theoretical approaches to literary and cultural texts, and a wide range of critical methods of researching in the humanities.
Students will develop capabilities in focused academic writing, exploring self- selected specialist subjects in depth and the ability to complete guided research work across a diverse range of literary fields and critical approaches, in preparation for the completion of a major research project.
In the second semester, alongside a module designed to enhance student research skills, students will complete a substantial individual research project, with guided supervision and training in the field of English Literature at M-level.
This list is indicative and subject to change.
- Contemporary Critical Approaches to Literature
- Emotion and Representation
- Visions of the Real: Literature, Science and Myth
- Sources and Transformations
- The Manuscript (Dissertation)
Contemporary Critical Approaches to Literature
The aim of this module is to explore different critical approaches to literature and culture in the contemporary Humanities.
The concept of ‘literature’ is crucial and elusive, expanding under the impact of digitalisation and new forms of creative and critical writing. On this module students will explore issues of historical analysis, the ethics and science of reading, and theoretical and critical transformations of the very concept of literature in both the past and present.
Students will engage with the latest critical and theoretical developments in approaches to literary texts through interactive lectures and workshops that focus on the elusive nature of what is ‘literature’.
The course moves between texts, both literary and non-literary, and across key movements in the history of the ‘literary’, from the eighteenth-century to the modernist movement and up to the present moment.
Students will develop a tool-kit of approaches and methods of analysis, as well as focusing their essay on a particular interrogation of literature.
Emotion and Representation
This module explores a diverse range of literary and cultural texts focused around the problem of emotion and representation.
The module will explore how literary writers have engaged with extreme emotion and how this emotion puts pressure on representation and literary convention.
Literary and cultural texts provide a rich language of feeling and, at the same time, probe the limits of language to represent emotional states.
Visions of the Real: Literature, Science and Myth
Fiction has always had a tense relationship with reality. Is fiction more real than reality, as literary characters come to ‘life’, or is fiction a betrayal of reality?
In this course students will engage with the sometimes blurred lines between literature, science and myth.
Beginning from the moment of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, which expresses the tension between the ‘clear’ vision of reality and the power of myth, between science and romance, the course goes on to explore a range of literature poised between myth and science, the crisis of modernity for both science and myth, and the ongoing imbrication of science, myth and literature.
Sources and Transformations
All writing is an act of transformation. This module is designed to give students the opportunity to explore transformative texts and reflect on how such texts mediate their own life experience.
Students will use their critical and creative skills to reflect on how these texts engage their experience and how they can find critical and creative connections between these texts and their experiences.
The Manuscript (Dissertation)
This module is an independent research dissertation of up to 15,000 words designed in consultation a dissertation supervisor. It is also supported by the module.
Teaching and Assessment
Feel the support of expert staff and researchers
Teaching
Our team of experienced tutors and experts use the latest research to underlie their teaching. This ensures that you have access the latest debates within the study of English Literature.
You will learn through interactive lectures and seminars.
The dissertation offers guided and supported research into the literature that you find urgent and engaging.
In addition to the core courses, staff offer dedicated tutorial time after each taught session and are also available for discussion and consultation online or via individual tutorials.
Assessment
You will take four core modules (three with an assessment of a 5,000 word essay) and receive support in writing your own research dissertation (15,000 words).
The core modules cover the diversity and range in English literature study, from the Renaissance to the present moment.
They explore how literature is animating our contemporary concerns, the intense experiences of emotion that literature can offer, the various ways in which literature imagines reality, and how to activate your abilities as a researcher.
Experience
Find facilities and research centres that support your learning
Bishop Otter campus
Click to watch our virtual tour of our historic Bishop Otter campus in the heart of Chichester.
Learning Resource Centre
The Learning Resource centre (LRC) contains the library, a café, IT/teaching rooms, and the Student Information Zone (SIZ).
Library
Our campus library holds more than 200,000 books and over 500,000 eBooks.
Expert staff
You will learn from expert researchers from the field of English Literature, here to support your development.
Subject specific librarians
If you have difficulty finding material for an essay, seminar or project, subject librarians will be happy to provide assistance.
Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction
Our forum for research and debate into beyond realist literature.
Guest speakers
The University regularly welcomes renowned creative writers to speak on their work and industry.
Iris Murdoch Research Centre
The Iris Murdoch Research Centre supports and develops work into this major twentieth century writer.
Local cultural links
The University is placed within the reach of the beautiful South Downs area of the UK.
Careers
Open up your future career options
Why take an MA?
Our MA English Literature acts as a gateway to PhD research as it provides an opportunity to focus your research, develop your independence in a supportive environment, and refine your research skills.
This course would be ideal for:
- Anyone interested in intellectual development.
- Those wanting to develop their skills, subject knowledge, and confidence in research and the presentation of research.
- Current or prospective teachers in English Literature and related subjects.
- Those looking for careers in research-related fields, from librarianship to arts management.
- For any employment role requiring skills in self-directed analysis, communication and writing, such as editing and publishing.
- Those working or looking to work in any business role requiring abilities in self-managed development and the presentation of ideas.
- Any current student who is keen to enhance their studies further.
Our MA English Literature course aims to transform you into an active and confident researcher in the broad field of English Literature.
Our graduates are highly-valued by employers for their strong problem solving and communication skills and often continue into a wide range of careers.
Career paths include:
- Publishing
- Teaching
- Marketing
- Journalism
- Communications and PR
- Local and national government
- Copywriting
Course Costs
Course fees 2027/28
UK fee
£9,540
International fee
£16,560
University of Chichester alumni who have completed a full undergraduate degree at the University will receive a 15% discount on their postgraduate fees.
For further details about fees, please see our Tuition Fees page.
For further details about international scholarships, please see our Scholarships page.
Entry Requirements
- An honours degree at 2:1 or higher in a related discipline.
- Students with a 2:2 honours degree will be considered on a case by case basis.
- You will be required to attend an interview.
- If English is not your first language then English language proficiency required is IELTS 6.5 (with no element less than 5.5) – or equivalent qualification.