English Literature BA

Course overview

Encounter new perspectives, discover great creative minds, and develop your abilities as a thinker and communicator on our English Literature programme. This degree emphasises literature as a dynamic social and political force that actively shapes the world in which we live. Our modules respond to urgent contemporary concerns such as the environment, race and racism, identity, and disability. You will also have the opportunity to study texts from a wide range of authors, genres, periods and cultures.

This degree will advance your critical thinking, your understanding of social and cultural differences, and your effectiveness as a persuasive communicator—all key skills that you will need in the workplace.

Studying English Literature at Leeds prepares you for an exciting and fulfilling professional future. Graduates pursue careers in media, publishing, journalism, education, the charities sector, cultural industries and creative arts, or enter fields including management, marketing, and business, where strong analytical and communication skills are prized.

Our expertise

The School of English is ranked fourth in the UK for research. Our student-centred teaching is always evolving, drawing on the latest research and ideas, and on the expertise of staff who are at the cutting edge of literary studies. The School has many creative writers and practitioners, including the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage. It is home to Poetry@Leeds, which brings together emerging and established poets, and we host events and readings by writers from around the world. The highly respected literary magazine, Stand, is produced in the School, and we support a number of student publications, including our annual Tenterhook.

Facilities

The School of English has a large informal study space where students meet and work between classes and hold English Society events. There are many attractive places to work on campus. Our Student Union runs a huge range of societies and offers great food options, while The Edge is a state-of-the-art sports facility just a few minutes’ walk from the School. As a campus university close to the centre of a vibrant city, everything is within easy reach and there are plenty of part-time work opportunities.

The world-class Brotherton Library has a wealth of archive, manuscript and early printed material in its Special Collections including a Shakespeare First Folio, letters by Charles Dickens, materials from the Brontë family, the collection of Bram Stoker papers, as well as more recent archives from writers such as Peter Robinson, Simon Armitage, and Tony Harrison.

The University of Leeds is a partner of the National Poetry Centre, the national home for poetry, performance, learning and literacy based in Leeds.

The School of English has its own print studio, allowing you to learn traditional typesetting and printing techniques and print your own works.

Course details

Our modules explore themes relevant to how we live today, including race and ethnicity, gender, climate change and nature, social class, disability, and wellbeing. 

Taught by world-leading academics, you’ll develop a nuanced understanding of literatures in English from the medieval to the present moment, and from the local to the global.

A foundational first year will develop your ability to read critically and write with flair and precision while exploring the diversity and range of literatures in English. Second year will deepen your understanding of literature’s relationship to the environment and to the self, whilst consolidating your knowledge of the breadth and range of the subject. At Level 3, you will build your expertise through choosing from a range of specialist option modules taught by cutting-edge researchers. A final year project on a topic of your choice will allow you to sharpen and confirm your own distinctive critical voice. 

At Level 1, students take Reading Between the Lines and Writing Matters, which introduce you to university-level study and equip you to read critically and write with rigour and persuasion. A further compulsory module on Race, Writing and Decolonisation looks at some of the most explosive Black writing on race and how it has inspired decolonising and anti-racist movements across the world. You can choose between modules that focus on drama, poetry or fiction and take a Discovery module that allows you to study subjects from across the University.

At Level 2, students will take two core modules, Writing Environments and Body Language. These modules explore two urgent contemporary challenges, the climate crisis and personal wellbeing, and will examine how these issues can be understood and expressed through literary texts. Students will also select four further modules from a choice of eight, ranging historically and geographically from Medieval to Contemporary, and from Postcolonial to American.

Level 2 deepens and enriches subject knowledge and intellectual skills, preparing you for more independent learning at Level 3. Here, we offer a wide range of specialist modules from which you can choose. You might study literature from Arthurian legends to refugee narratives, from Jane Austen novels to African American literature, from Romantic poetry to the digital humanities. You will also undertake a final year project on a subject of your choice. Supported by your supervisor, you will define, plan, and produce an extended piece of work that will further enhance your research skills and ability to communicate effectively.

After your second year of study, you may apply for transfer to an International Degree at one of a wide range of many universities around the world with which the University of Leeds has established links. You may also spend a year in industry on a work placement as an optional third year of your degree programme.

With seminar discussions and workshops, access to outstanding resources on campus, and expert staff to guide and support, you’ll be able to broaden your knowledge and build your skills for the future.

The course information shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our terms and conditions.

Most courses consist of compulsory and optional modules. There may be some optional modules omitted below. This is because they are currently being refreshed to make sure students have the best possible experience. Before you enter each year, full details of all modules for that year will be provided.

For more information please read BA English Literature in the course catalogue.

Year 1 compulsory modules

Race, Writing and Decolonization (20 credits) - Current hashtag movements from Black Lives Matter to Why is My Curriculum White? to Fees Must Fall suggest that the project of racial decolonisation is far from over. Focusing on African-American, South African, Caribbean and Black British writing, this module offers the chance to look at some of the most explosive black writing on race and how it informs our current 'decolonial' moment. We will move from the writing that helped dismantle the British Empire, usher in the civil rights era in the US, and bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, through to contemporary writing that confronts ongoing structures of racism. The question of exactly what constitutes blackness and black writing will be at the heart of our discussions.

Reading Between the Lines (20 credits) - This module equips students with a critical vocabulary for sophisticated literary study. Through close analysis of texts from a range of periods, the module introduces the creative, argumentative, and exciting discipline of ‘English Studies’. Students will encounter some of the theories that have shaped the discipline, and in turn, will discover how an English degree might change how they read the world. Guided critical reading, collaboration with peers in group presentations and seminars, and a variety of assignments will introduce students to the different kinds of assessment required later in the degree.

Writing Matters (20 credits) - Writing and communication skills are vital to most professional careers and are at the heart of English studies. This module uses well-known texts to explore the theoretical approaches and rhetorical strategies used to write about literature. Students will enhance their own writing by engaging ethically with the text and what has been written about it, developing structured arguments, expressing ideas clearly and concisely, working with feedback, and practising writing as a process. As a result, students will cultivate a deeper understanding of how writing works, within the context of the degree, the discipline of English, and the wider world beyond.

Year 1 optional modules

Selection of typical options shown below:

• Poetry: Reading and Interpretation (20 credits)

• Drama: Text and Performance (20 credits)

• Modern Fictions in English (20 credits)

Year 2 compulsory modules

Writing Environments: Literature, Nature, Culture (20 credits) - This module examines what it means to live as human beings on a more-than-human planet. We’ll investigate how literary texts from different times and places have understood the relationship between nature and culture. We’ll address human impacts on the environment in relation to historical phenomena such as colonialism. And we’ll explore the insights that literature can offer at a time of concern about climate change and other environmental issues.

Body Language: Literature and Embodiment (20 credits) - At the heart of this module are big questions such as: what does it mean to be ‘human’? Does technology change who we are? What are the links between the body and the mind? Tackling the relationships between embodiment, language, and representation in texts from different periods and in different forms and genres, the module examines how writers have imagined the relationship between material bodies and literary representation.

Year 2 optional modules

• Renaissance Literature (20 credits)

• Medieval and Tudor Literature (20 credits)

• Modern Literature (20 credits)

• Postcolonial Literature (20 credits)

• The World Before Us: Literature 1660-1830 (20 credits)

• Other Voices: Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Literature (20 credits)

• American Words, American Worlds (20 credits)

Year 3 compulsory modules

Final Year Project (40 credits) - This module encourages independent, self-directed learning, providing a culmination to the research strand emphasised in other modules. Working with their supervisor and supported by a programme of lectures and workshops, students pursue their own intellectual interests by designing, defining and creating their own capstone project. Since this might take a number of forms, it fosters a wide variety of responses to the challenges it offers students. Most importantly, it promotes academic creativity by allowing students the space to explore their own intellectual passions.

Year 3 optional modules

Each year we offer a selection of optional modules at Level 3. These are taught by research specialists based in the School. Some typical examples are shown below:

• Sex and Suffering in the Eighteenth-Century Novel (20 credits)

• Telling Lives: Reading and Writing Family Memoir (20 credits)

• Home Bodies: Companion Animals in Contemporary Literature (20 credits)

• Postcolonial London (20 credits)

• Global African Writing (20 credits)

• Shakespeare and Global Cinema (20 credits)

• Refugee Narratives (20 credits)

• Fictions of the End: Apocalypse and After (20 credits)

• Bowie, Reading, Writing (20 credits)

Learning and teaching

We use interactive face-to-face teaching and learning methods to help you benefit from our tutors’ expertise. These include small group seminars, which are at the heart of this degree, but you’ll also encounter lectures, workshops, one-to-one tutorials, group work, and guided online learning through Minerva, our Virtual Learning Environment. Our globally recognised research feeds directly into your course and shapes what you learn at Leeds with the latest thinking. You’ll be taught by inspirational academics who are experts in their field and share your passion for your subject.

Independent study is a vital element of this course since it enables you to develop your research and critical skills and form your ideas. 

On this course, you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.

Assessment

English Literature modules are assessed using various methods, including exams, presentations, essays and shorter written assignments. 

Some modules will also include wikis, podcasts, research exercises or oral presentations.

This range of assessments will help you develop your communication skills, improve your digital literacy, and enhance your ability to deliver different projects. 

Entry requirements

A-level: AAB including A in English (Language, Literature or Language and Literature)

Other course specific tests:

Where an applicant is taking the EPQ in a relevant subject this might be considered alongside other Level 3 qualifications and may attract an alternative offer in addition to the standard offer. If you are taking A Levels, this would be ABB at A Level including A in English (Language, Literature or Language and Literature) and grade A in the EPQ.

We welcome applications from mature students with Access qualifications, and from students with a wide range of qualifications.

Alternative qualification

Read more about UK and Republic of Ireland accepted qualifications or contact the School’s Undergraduate Admissions Team.

Alternative entry

We’re committed to identifying the best possible applicants, regardless of personal circumstances or background.

Access to Leeds is a contextual admissions scheme which accepts applications from individuals who might be from low income households, in the first generation of their immediate family to apply to higher education, or have had their studies disrupted.

Find out more about Access to Leeds and contextual admissions.

Typical Access to Leeds offer: BBB including English (Language, Literature or Language and Literature) at A Level and pass Access to Leeds

Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year

This course is designed for students whose backgrounds mean they are less likely to attend university (also known as widening participation backgrounds) and who do not currently meet admissions criteria for direct entry to a degree.

The course will give you the opportunity to be taught by academic staff and provides intensive support to enable your development of academic skills and knowledge. On successful completion of your foundation year, you will progress to your chosen degree course. Find out more about the Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year

Alternative Entry Scheme for Mature Students

If you are a mature applicant (over 21) and you don’t have the required A Levels or GCSE English and maths qualifications, you can complete our Alternative Entry Scheme (subject to meeting the eligibility criteria for the scheme). As part of this, you may be asked to take tests in English and maths and to write an essay.

Contact the Lifelong Learning Centre for more information.

International

We accept a range of international equivalent qualifications. For more information contact the School of English admissions team

International Foundation Year

International students who do not meet the academic requirements for undergraduate study may be able to study the University of Leeds International Foundation Year. This gives you the opportunity to study on campus, be taught by University of Leeds academics and progress onto a wide range of Leeds undergraduate courses. Find out more about International Foundation Year programmes.

English language requirements

IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in any component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications.

Improve your English
If you're an international student and you don't meet the English language requirements for this programme, you may be able to study our undergraduate pre-sessional English course, to help improve your English language level.

Fees

UK: To be confirmed

International: To be confirmed

Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2025/26
The fee for UK undergraduate students is decided by the Government and may vary if policy changes. The fee may increase in future years of your course in line with inflation, and as permitted by law.

Tuition fees for UK undergraduate students starting in 2025/26 will be £9,535.

The tuition fee for the following programmes with an integrated foundation year is £5,760 for the foundation year, and £9,535 for subsequent years of study:
•    Business Studies with Foundation Year BSC
•    Arts and Humanities with Foundation Year BA
•    Interdisciplinary Studies with Preparation for Higher Education BA
•    Social Science (foundation year) BA
 

Tuition fees for international undergraduate students starting in 2025/26
Tuition fees for international students for 2025/26 are available on individual course pages.
 

Tuition fees for a study abroad or work placement year
If you take a study abroad or work placement year, you’ll pay a reduced tuition fee during this period. For more information, see Study abroad and work placement tuition fees and loans.

Read more about paying fees and charges.

There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more on our living costs and budgeting page.

Scholarships and financial support

If you have the talent and drive, we want you to be able to study with us, whatever your financial circumstances. There is help for students in the form of loans and non-repayable grants from the University and from the government. Find out more in our Undergraduate funding overview.

Applying

Apply to this course through UCAS. Check the deadline for applications on the UCAS website.

Read our guidance about applying.

International students apply through UCAS in the same way as UK students. Our network of international representatives can help you with your application. If you’re unsure about the application process, contact the admissions team for help.

Read about visas, immigration and other information in International students. We recommend that international students apply as early as possible to ensure that they have time to apply for their visa.

Admissions policy

University of Leeds Admissions Policy 2025

This course is taught by

School of English

Contact us

School of English Undergraduate Admissions

Email: englishug@leeds.ac.uk
Telephone:

Career opportunities

A degree in English gives you a range of valuable skills and attributes.

Our graduates have gone on to find success in areas such as:

• the creative industries

• heritage sector

• marketing, education

• civil society and not-for-profit organisations

• journalism

• law

• publishing

• media

• business charity work

• civil service

• management consultancy and leadership

Many have also progressed to postgraduate study. 

On this course, you’ll develop your abilities as an excellent communicator who can present well-reasoned arguments and conclusions. Learning in groups with others and reading about human problems and social situations will develop your interpersonal skills and understanding of ethical and cultural complexities. 

You’ll have strong organisational and time management skills and you’ll be able to conduct research, interpret complex information, think critically and express yourself clearly. Employers are always looking out for people with these critical skills. 

Careers support

We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.

The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more about Careers support.

Study abroad and work placements

Study abroad

On this course you have the opportunity to apply to spend time abroad, usually as an extra academic year. We have over 300 University partners worldwide and popular destinations for our students include Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa and Latin America. 

Find out more at the Study Abroad website.

Work placements

Practical work experience can help you decide on your career and improve your employability. On this course you have the option to apply to take a placement year module with organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, or overseas.

Find out more about work experience on the Careers website.