English

The close analysis of novels, texts, and poems develops an understanding of the social novel in the contexts of American and British literature. This course introduces key authors, concepts, and critical tools in modern British and American literary studies. It provides the historical, cultural, and theoretical frameworks necessary to understand “The Poetics of Subversion” in both traditions. The British component focuses on Romantic poetry through selected works by Blake, Shelley, and others, using Stanley Appelbaum’s ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY as the primary text. The American component examines forms of poetic subversion in 20th‑century U.S. literature, with readings from Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, and other major voices; a curated selection of poems IS made available to students. Students acquire analytical tools specific to the study of literary texts, become familiar with essential concepts in critical terminology, and practice applying these tools through guided exercises based on the program’s texts. Through this combined methodological and analytical approach, students deepen their understanding of the social and aesthetic stakes of British and American literature while strengthening their argumentative, interpretive, and communicative skills.

This course focuses on the novels of Jane Austen, four published in her lifetime (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma), two published posthumously (Persuasion, Northanger Abbey), and one unfinished fragment (Sanditon). It examines key themes in Austen’s novels, such as the roles of family and femininity, of class, manners, status and authority, and teaches about Austen’s pioneering and distinctive narrative techniques, including her use of free indirect discourse, epistolary narration, and natural dialogue. This course provides a thorough introduction to the life, works, and influence of Jane Austen, and is perfect for students seeking to develop their knowledge of this popular author and their skills of literary analysis.

How has prose fiction from approximately the mid 1990s onward (roughly the era after the decline of postmodernism and the rise of online media) held our fears, loathing's, and compulsions up to the light and changed our ways of thinking about them? This period of unprecedented online access has resuscitated the author, so this course reads essays, interviews, opinion pieces, and life writing by the fictionalists concerned, alongside the journalism and scholarship of others. The novels (including excerpts from very long works) and short fiction have been published, some in experimental online formats, across anglophone literary cultures. Assumed previous knowledge includes deep and wide reading of English-language literature, in particular contemporary fiction, and literary theory. Previous knowledge can be gained by The Writers' Lab; A New Dawn: Renaissance Literature 1400-1700; The Making of Modernity: Literature in English 1660-1850; Brave New Worlds: Literature in English 1850-1950; Race, Empire, and Gothic in the Literature of the Athropocene; Life, Love and Politics in Medieval Literature; Shakespeare's Work and Worlds; Literary Toolbox.

This course examines five novels by Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. Each novel will provide a starting point from which we will explore the representation of broad themes of historical and literary significance relating to late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain. We will examine the ways in which knowledge of the period in which Austen wrote enriches our understanding of her fiction and how the novels in turn participate in certain crucial debates and developments of the period. Topics to be covered will include the representation within the novels of the following: the Navy, marriage and adultery, fashion and consumption, slavery and empire, the landed estate, Bath, the concept of 'improvement', the female reading public and its institutions, leisure, the Gothic, ideas of the family and domesticity, music, the theatre, female friendship, philanthropy and science. We will also critically examine the significance of the Austen 'craze' with reference to film and television versions of the novels as well as Austen's presence on the internet.

The course traces a history of the fantasy genre's formation and crystallization, from its medieval beginnings to the present. It looks at the story-telling and world-building literary devices used by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his medieval bestseller about King Arthur in Oxford Castle, and the authors of Renaissance Romance fantasies. It also explores Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, a forerunner of science fiction, and 18th-century Gothic fantasies which paved the way for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The course follows Oxford's own Lewis Carroll, Scottish fantasy author George Macdonald, and the pre-Raphaelite William Morris through to Tolkien and Lewis and beyond. It also considers recent critical approaches to the fantasy genre as well as discusses whether these pre-21st century texts lend themselves with ease to the modern media of cinema, TV serialization, or computer games, and which adjustments have been made or are still to be made to make them relevant to our own times.

This course considers the diverse literature produced during a transitional era stretching from the Restoration of the British monarchy in 1660 to the eve of American independence. It addresses a wide range of genres that flourished during this period, including poetry, novels, drama, travel writing and life writing.

In this course students explore the rich heterogeneity of the Victorian novel through close examination of works by a range of canonical and non-canonical authors. Students examine the changing shape of the novel throughout the 19th century (from the sprawling "monstrosity" of the triple-decker to the compact neatness of the proto-modernist aesthetic of the 1890s), as well as the range of novelistic genres that proliferated at this time (including realism, sensation, the industrial novel, Victorian gothic, horror, adventure, and science fiction), and consider the ways in which the cultural, social, and political values of Victorian Britain are both encoded and contested in the novels of the age.

This interdisciplinary course increases students’ vocabulary in the areas of business, tourism and law. Students analyze academic tests such as research reports, textbook chapters, and academic articles in the fields of business, tourism, and law. They also complete language tasks that are linked to the industry, such as reading and understanding the language of various types of contracts; reading and understanding the structure and content of annual reports and other company reports; analyzing the language of tourism products and services; and knowing how to interpret and use surveys and statistics published by official bodies.

English Lit and Pop Music? Yes! This course reads a variety of English literature, produced from the Middle Ages up through last week, in light of popular music of the last fifty years—and vice versa, too. The course takes both fields seriously (though fun is encouraged too), with an emphasis on connections with King's College London. A variety of genres, eras, and voices, from English lit, the English department, and the music world come together here. Archival work, both at KCL (e.g., the Duffy archives) and beyond, provides an important foundation and opportunities for discovery.