English and Beginners' Italian

English and Beginners' Italian is a degree that combines one of the richest literary traditions in the world with the opportunity to learn one of Europe's most beautiful and culturally significant languages from scratch. English at Oxford involves the close, rigorous reading of poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction from medieval times to the present, developing the capacity for precise analysis of language and the construction of sustained literary argument that marks the discipline at its highest level. Italian as a language learnt from the beginning takes you into the literary tradition of Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Calvino, into a culture of extraordinary artistic achievement, and into one of the most widely spoken languages in the European Union.

At the University of Oxford, this four-year full-time degree uses the distinctive tutorial system to give you close, individually tailored intellectual development alongside lectures and seminars. In the English component, you will read widely across periods and genres, developing your critical and analytical skills through essay writing and one-to-one tutorials with specialists. In Italian, you will move systematically from complete beginner level to advanced linguistic competence, learning grammar, developing spoken and written fluency, and reading increasingly challenging texts in the original.

The combination demands intellectual range and the ability to move between disciplines, languages, and historical contexts, and Oxford's tutorial system provides the support and challenge to develop these capacities.

Graduates of English and Italian from Oxford enter careers in publishing, journalism, law, education, broadcasting, translation, the creative industries, and the civil service. Oxford's reputation opens doors across the graduate market, and the combination of literary depth and Italian language skills is distinctive. Many graduates pursue postgraduate study in English, Italian, comparative literature, or linguistics, and the degree is excellent preparation for academic research in either field.