Comparative Literature/English Literature

Comparative literature is the study of literary texts across the boundaries that usually separate them: national borders, historical periods, languages, genres, and even the borders between literature and other art forms. It asks what different traditions share, how ideas and forms travel across cultures, and what new meanings emerge when works are placed in dialogue with texts they were never intended to address. English literature, combined with it, gives you one of the world's richest single-language literary traditions as both a point of departure and a point of return in that broader comparative investigation.

At the University of Glasgow you will study this four-year programme, developing the ability to engage with literature across multiple traditions and to situate English texts within the wider context of world literary culture. You will build critical and analytical skills in close reading, literary-historical analysis, and comparative argument, learning to move fluently between texts in different languages, periods, and cultural contexts. The programme includes a year abroad, extending your experience of different literary traditions and scholarly approaches in an international setting.

Glasgow has particular strengths in both comparative and Scottish literature, and the combination gives you access to a programme of exceptional range and depth.

Graduates of comparative literature and English literature bring a genuinely distinctive set of skills to the labour market. The ability to work across languages, cultures, and disciplinary boundaries, combined with the analytical and communication skills that literary study develops, is valued in publishing, translation, journalism, broadcasting, the cultural and creative industries, education, the civil service, arts administration, and the wide range of international organisations and businesses that operate across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Postgraduate study in comparative literature, English, cultural studies, translation, or a specific national literature is a natural extension for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue academic research careers.