English Literature and History

English literature and history is a combination that reads the past through two different but deeply related lenses: the stories and texts that writers have produced across more than fifteen centuries, and the historical events, social structures, and human experiences those texts emerged from and responded to. Literature and history have always been in conversation: writers bear witness to the times in which they live, and historians engage with literary sources as evidence and as cultural artefacts. Studying them together allows you to understand the past more fully than either discipline could offer alone.

At Swansea University, this three-year full-time joint honours programme asks you to explore historical events and literary texts side by side, gaining insight into how stories, ideas, and experiences shape societies across time. You will study a wide range of literary forms and periods, developing the skills of close reading and critical argument that English literature demands, alongside the archival research, contextual analysis, and historical reasoning that history requires. The combination covers more than a thousand years of human experience, from medieval chronicles and early modern drama through to Victorian novels and contemporary writing, and it situates literary works within their social, political, and economic contexts in ways that deepen your understanding of both the texts and the times.

You will develop strong skills in research, analytical writing, close reading, and the kind of sustained critical thinking that two demanding disciplines together require.

Graduates of English literature and history go on to careers in teaching, journalism, archiving, heritage, publishing, law, policy, the civil service, and a wide range of roles where research and communication skills matter. Postgraduate study in either English or history, as well as in library and information science, museum studies, or law, is a well-supported continuation.