All the English degrees at Warwick provide the opportunity to study a wide rage of classic English literature alongside European literature (in translation or in the original), American literature, theatre and writing.  The department has established strengths in comparative European literatures, early modern studies, literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and literary and cultural theory.  Most recent areas of focus include postcolonial studies, world literature, drama and performance, and contemporary writing.

Example modules

North American Women Writers

To study a selection of North American Women Writers in depth, within the wider context of North American literary and cultural preoccupations, and with reference to a selection of critical debates. The module aims to encourage the individual interpretations and responses of students within the frameworks provided by the prescribed reading. The module also aims to develop different types of student writing, including academic writing, creative writing and web site contributions. Themes to be discussed will include: women and marriage, ethnicity and gender, individual autonomy and female self reliance, regionalism and the specificities of American geography, communal memory and storytelling, cultural spaces, history/her story, representation of the female body, representations of the city, sexual/textual politics, and cultural spaces. Attention will be paid to issues of genre, narrative strategies, and performativity.

Romantic and Victorian Poetry
This module focuses on significant poets from the Romantic and Victorian periods and situates their work within the cultural, social, political, economic,
scientific and aesthetic debates of the period. You will need to pay close attention to both formal and contextual dimensions of the poems. This is primarily a close-reading module, however, and the focus is always the poems. The set texts are nearly all in the anthologies, except for one or two, which can be accessed by clicking on the links on the set texts page.

You are welcome and encouraged to read other poems written in the period 1780-1900 in addition to the set texts.

The department offers guidance to students about the courses available to them. Please note that while the department makes every effort to accommodate the course choices of students, places on all modules are subject to availability.