Classics and Beginners' Portuguese

Classics and beginners' Portuguese is a pairing that invites you to engage simultaneously with one of the oldest literary traditions in the Western world and one of the most geographically widespread living languages. Classics brings you into direct contact with the literatures, languages, histories, and philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome, offering a profound engagement with foundational texts in Greek and Latin and with the civilisations that produced them. Portuguese, built from the ground up at Oxford for students with no prior knowledge, gives you access to a global language with a rich modern and medieval literature, spoken across Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, and many other countries.

At the University of Oxford, the combination is studied over four years, giving you time to develop genuine competence in Portuguese from beginner level while pursuing classics at the depth that Oxford's tutorial system makes possible. In classics you might study Homeric epic, Athenian tragedy, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the history of the Roman Republic and Empire, or the Latin poetry of Virgil and Horace, engaging with texts in their original languages. In Portuguese you will progress from the foundations to reading literature in the original, engaging with the cultures of the Lusophone world, and developing the linguistic confidence that advanced study requires.

Graduates of this unusual combination are equipped with the analytical rigour of classical training, advanced Portuguese, and a wide cultural and historical knowledge base. Careers in education, the cultural sector, law, the civil service, journalism, and international organisations are all open to graduates with this background. The Portuguese gives particular value to roles involving Latin America, Africa, or Portugal itself, in business, diplomacy, development, or journalism.

Academic careers in classics, Portuguese studies, or comparative literature are another direction, and many Oxford graduates go on to postgraduate study before entering professional life.