English Literature

Literature in English spans more than six centuries of poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction, and its study opens one of the richest archives of human thought and feeling available to us. Reading literature seriously is not simply a matter of enjoying stories; it involves learning to attend closely to language, to understand texts in their historical and cultural contexts, and to engage with critical debates about meaning, form, representation, and value. These skills, developed through sustained practice, are among the most transferable that any degree provides.

At the University of Glasgow, you will explore literature from the early modern period to the postmodern, engaging with American, Irish, and postcolonial literatures alongside the British canon. You will benefit from academic expertise across a wide range of areas including critical theory, creative writing, and the relationships between literature and other arts, media, and science. This breadth allows you to develop a genuinely comparative and interdisciplinary perspective on literary culture.

The programme includes a year abroad, offering you the opportunity to study literature in a different national context and to extend your critical range. It is studied part-time.

Graduates of English literature degrees are valued across almost every profession that depends on communication, argument, and cultural understanding. Many go into careers in publishing, journalism, education, the civil service, the arts, policy, and the law, as well as roles in marketing, communications, and public affairs. The programme also provides excellent preparation for postgraduate study in literary studies, creative writing, cultural history, or media, where the analytical depth developed at undergraduate level becomes a significant advantage.