English Literature and Music

English literature and music is a pairing that brings together two disciplines concerned with the ways in which human beings use form, language, and sound to create meaning, express experience, and shape culture. English literature trains you in close reading, critical analysis, and the interpretation of texts across a wide range of periods, genres, and traditions. Music develops both technical understanding, including harmony, counterpoint, and music history, and creative and performative skills.

Together they cultivate a set of sensibilities and capacities that are complementary and mutually enriching. At Liverpool Hope University, this four-year, full-time programme includes a foundation year, providing an additional year of preparation before the main degree begins.

You will read widely in literature, from medieval poetry and Renaissance drama to twentieth-century fiction and contemporary writing, engaging with the critical and theoretical frameworks that help us understand how texts work and what they mean. In music, you will develop your knowledge of Western musical tradition alongside more contemporary and non-Western repertoires, and you will pursue practical work in performance, composition, or analysis depending on your interests and skills. Liverpool's rich musical and literary culture provides an inspiring context for both strands of the degree, and the programme includes a sandwich placement year, work placement opportunities, and a year abroad, all of which add professional and international dimensions to the degree.

Graduates of English literature and music pursue careers in education, journalism, arts administration, publishing, broadcasting, music management, and cultural policy, as well as in creative practice as writers or musicians. The analytical, communicative, and creative skills developed through the degree are widely transferable and valued across a range of fields. Many graduates also go on to postgraduate study in literature, music, education, or cultural studies.