BA (Hons)
English

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Key Information

Campus

Brayford Pool

Typical Offer

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Duration

3 years

UCAS Code

Q300

Academic Year

Course Overview

By studying English at Lincoln, you can explore a lively and varied collection of texts, from medieval and Renaissance literature right through to twenty-first century culture.

You can benefit from research-led teaching in all modules, covering areas such as the contemporary Gothic, Shakespearean studies, environmentalism, Arthurian legends, detective fiction, dystopian catastrophes, Black British writing, and Victorian childhoods.

The BA (Hons) English course covers poetry, fiction, and drama, as well as less traditional forms of "text" such as life-writing, graphic novels, film, and television.

Throughout the course you are encouraged to consider how literature shapes and challenges our attitudes towards others and can influence and change cultural and political opinion. The broad range of topics enables you to pursue your own interests, while individual research projects are designed to develop critical thinking skills.

Our literature degree is inspiring, practical, and wide-ranging, preparing students for their future careers. Students on the course will gain a range of highly transferable skills for the workplace, including written and oral communication, research, analysis, independent judgement, team-working, and project management.

Literary study at Lincoln is enhanced by talks from visiting speakers and contemporary writers. These have included: the previous Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy; the writer and cultural critic Will Self; TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham; and TV presenter and art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon.

Why Choose Lincoln

Active research community of staff and students

Option to study abroad at a partner university

Hear from guest speakers including published authors

Undertake a dissertation on a research topic of your choice

Optional field trips to places of interest in the UK

On-campus library open 24/7 during key periods

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How You Study

A number of Lincoln's English academics are international research leaders in their fields, and their research directly informs their teaching. Areas of particular strength include 21st Century literature, 19th Century literature, Gothic studies, American literature, and the medieval.

The first year of the course introduces narrative, poetry, drama, popular culture, literary history, and literary criticism. In the second year, you can choose from a range of optional modules which may include The Arthurian Myth, Restoration Literature, Romanticism, and modern American literature.

You may be offered the opportunity to study abroad for one term during the second year, at universities in the US, Canada, Australia, or Germany. Students who do so are responsible for any associated travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

In the final year, you are able to explore exciting and timely subjects, such as the literature of childhood, literature and the environment, detective fiction, American literature and culture, Gothic literature and film, or specialist author-focused modules such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bronte, or Dickens. You also have the opportunity to undertake a dissertation on a research topic of your choice.

Modules are taught through a variety of methods from year-group lectures and small-group seminar teaching to individual tutorials and one-to-one supervision. Each of these modes is designed to facilitate your learning by developing a range of different approaches to engaging with texts.

In order to study English at university, you will be expected to read widely in the subject. This will mean undertaking self-guided study and research in preparation for taught sessions. You will be provided with detailed reading lists for each module.

Meet Our Graduate!

Molly Hemeter graduated from the University of Lincoln in 2019 with a BA (Hons) English. She successfully gained a place on the graduate scheme at BT, where she has remained since, gaining a number of promotions. Molly is now Regional Service Lead for one of BT Businesses' largest conglomerates.

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Modules

              † Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.

              Drama Theatre Performance 2025-26ENL1015MLevel 42025-26This module introduces students to the distinctive characteristics of drama, theatre, and performance as both literary forms and as performance practices. Students are encouraged to think about the relationship between written scripts and recorded performance. The module explores key drama, theatre and performance concepts, such as theatre semiotics, performance spaces, audience and spectatorship, and the performance of identity.CoreIntroduction to Narrative 2025-26ENL1010MLevel 42025-26Narrative is everywhere in our lives: in books, on TV, in history, on the news, on social media, in our conversations and in our heads. This module aims to give students an understanding of how narratives work and introduces a set of critical concepts, comprising theories of narratology and ideas of form and genre. A wide variety of forms of narrative will be addressed, such as the novel, short story, essay, and graphic memoir.CoreIntroduction to Poetry 2025-26ENL1009MLevel 42025-26This module looks at what makes poetic language different from 'normal' language, at how poets use the sounds and meanings of words, and at how poetry can be used to refresh, change or question our understanding of the world. We look at a range of poetry in English from nursery rhymes to rap and from the 14th century to the 21st. Our aim is to enable students to discuss poetry with confidence, accuracy and clarity, and, we hope, to enjoy more fully “the only art form that you can carry around in your head in its original form”.CoreIntroduction to Popular Culture 2025-26ENL1011MLevel 42025-26This module aims to provide students with a critical and theoretical vocabulary that will enable them to explore a range of twentieth century cultural activities. Students will be encouraged to read not only traditionally marginalised literary genres such as romance, crime fiction, science fiction and the comic book but also ‘texts’ from other cultural realms such as film, television, news, fashion, advertising, music TV, radio and magazines.CoreTexts in Time: Medieval to Romantic 2025-26ENL1070MLevel 42025-26Texts in Time: Medieval to Romantic introduces students to a variety of materials from a range of cultural and historical contexts from the 12th century to 1830, and to methods of reading historically. Students will thus build a foundation on writers and historical periods which they can choose to pursue in greater detail at levels 2 and 3. Students will examine literature in English in a range of forms, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, and the conditions under which these materials were created. There will be a particular emphasis throughout the module on questions concerning the self in society and the cultural tensions that arise when different understandings or definitions of identity clash. The chosen texts will demonstrate and explore understandings of the self in relation to matters such as sex, gender, race, nationality, class, religion, and age.CoreTexts in Time: Victorian to Contemporary 2025-26ENL1071MLevel 42025-26‘Texts in Time: Victorian to Contemporary’ introduces students to a variety of materials from a range of cultural and historical contexts from 1830 to the present, and to methods of reading historically. Students will thus build a foundation on writers and historical periods which they can choose to pursue in greater detail at levels 2 and 3. Students will examine literature in English in a range of forms, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, and the conditions under which these materials were created. There will be a particular emphasis throughout the module on questions concerning the self in society and the cultural tensions that arise when different understandings or definitions of identity clash. The chosen texts will demonstrate and explore understandings of the self in relation to matters such as sex, gender, race, nationality, class, religion, and age.CoreDis-Locations: the Literature of Late Capitalism 2026-27ENL2023MLevel 52026-27Fragmentation, uncertainty and conflict characterise a world in aftermath of war, at end of empire, and at the beginning of a period of radical social and cultural change. This module aims to chart the emergence of the contemporary world from these fractured beginnings through an introduction to British literature of the period 1950–2000. From the post-war Windrush migration to the rise of the historical novel at the turn of the millennium, the Angry Young Men to new feminist perspectives and postcolonialism, this module explores relevant theoretical perspectives on the late 20th Century and encourages an appreciation of the relationship between texts and their social, political and cultural contexts.CoreTheory Wars 2026-27ENL2017MLevel 52026-27This module considers the range of theories that we can use when we read and think about literature. Students will have the opportunity to study psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism and postmodernism, among others, to think about why and how we structure meaning and interpretation in certain ways. We consider questions such as ‘what is an author?’, ‘what is gender?’ and ‘why do certain things frighten us?’ through theorists such as Roland Barthes, Judith Butler and Sigmund Freud.CoreAfter The End: Reading the Apocalypse 2026-27ENL2027MLevel 52026-27This module explores apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic texts using a range of novels, short stories, poems and films. Lectures will establish cultural and historical contexts and address issues such as form and genre. The module will explore a range of significant periods from early Judeo-Christian fears regarding the purging moral apocalypse, through Romantic preoccupations with nature and industrialisation, postmodernism and more contemporary concerns about viral or cybernetic apocalypse. We will draw from a range of disciplines including literary theory, psychoanalysis, cultural theory, philosophy and trauma theory.OptionalAmerican Literature I 2026-27ENL2024MLevel 52026-27This module explores the nineteenth-century literature of the USA, chiefly focusing on fiction and poetry. Authors covered include Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Walt Whitman and Willa Cather, among others.OptionalAmerican Literature II 2026-27ENL2025MLevel 52026-27This module covers a broad range of twentieth-century American fiction and poetry. Beginning with Fitzgerald, other authors studied include Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.OptionalBritish Medieval Literature 2026-27ENL2044MLevel 52026-27This module examines key British medieval texts, primarily in Middle English, from the High and Late Middle Ages (that is, from approximately the twelfth century to fifteenth century). It explores the breadth of literary activity in the period through a variety of genres--such as debate poetry, ethnographies, beast fables, romance, dream visions, satire, devotional and mystical writings, and mystery plays--and the evolution of a new form of English (the precursor of modern English), revealing that the medieval period is, in truth, a far cry from the misnomer by which it is often identified, the ‘dark ages’.OptionalClass, Power and Performance on Stage and Screen 2026-27ENL2029MLevel 52026-27OptionalClassic and Contemporary Fantasy 2026-27ENL2064MLevel 52026-27This module examines one of the most varied literary genres extant, one that, at times, is often relegated to the margins because of its slippery nature. Students will examine early examples of fantasy and trace the genre’s development across a number of key historical epochs, from the classical and medieval periods to the twenty-first century. They will consider especially Tolkien as a pivotal force in the growth of fantasy literature and theory, as well as The Inklings, a group whose works had a profound influence on the evolution of the genre in the twentieth century. A range of subgenres of the fantastic will be explored, which may include high and low fantasy, ironic fantasy, historical fantasy, or magic realism, and, alongside primary texts, they will read selections from modern theoretical and critical texts that articulate different interpretations and approaches to the fantastic.OptionalExperimental Writing 2026-27ENL2066MLevel 52026-27This module, conceptually, textually, formally, and intellectually challenging, is designed to introduce students to a range of innovative literatures, in a variety of forms, in order both to interrogate the idea of experimental writing, and its own often aggressive interrogation of the expressive potential of literature.OptionalExploring the Digital Past: Introduction to Digital Humanities 2026-27HST2100Level 52026-27Explore a wide range of cutting-edge digital approaches to studying the past through a significant and growing area of research, the digital humanities. By studying this module, you can focus on developing the practical skills, techniques, and methodologies that can play a vital role in your future studies and career. The module provides opportunities to enhance, analyse, and interpret humanistic endeavours through approaches such as social network analysis, digital mapping, data visualisation, and textual analysis. You can also explore the impact and potential of artificial intelligence on the study of humanities in the digital worlds.OptionalLiterature of the Fin de Siècle 2026-27ENL2065MLevel 52026-27This module examines some of the preoccupations of the fin de siècle through a series of texts and authors who helped to shape the cultural climate of the 1880s-1900s. These decades gave rise to a pervasive feeling of vital urgency and exhilaration in Britain, as well as a conflicted sense that society was teetering on a cliff edge of irredeemable degeneration. Texts will be read alongside and in light of social and political developments, such as anxieties about Britain’s empire and position on the global stage, evolution and degeneration, sexual identity, women’s rights, the rise of occultism and spiritualism, Decadence, and radical politics. The study of fin de siècle writing will be set against the backdrop of the infamous Oscar Wilde trial, and the sensationalised Jack the Ripper murders, contemporary anxieties about criminality, the empire, and eugenics.OptionalMaking It New: An Introduction to Literary Modernism 2026-27ENL2016MLevel 52026-27In this module students will have the opportunity to explore the early twentieth century, one of the most creative periods in English literature, when writers like James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence were challenging conventional ways of writing and reading, and rewriting how we experience and understand the world and ourselves. Required reading will include some of the most powerful works from the modern movement between 1910 and 1940 including James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.OptionalModern Drama (Level 2) 2026-27ENL2011MLevel 52026-27OptionalPostcolonialism 2026-27ENL2022MLevel 52026-27This module examines literary representations of the world that emerge from the history of European exploration and expansion, and considers literary responses from groups that were marginalized through imperialism. Students will be encouraged to look at the treatment by white writers of issues of race and empire in the early twentieth century. They will also have the opportunity to explore ways in which postcolonial literatures develop strategies of 'writing back' to the imperial centre and re-thinking identity in terms of race, gender and nation. The final section offers a study of postcolonial Britain and some global implications of postcolonial writing.OptionalReading the 'Global' 2026-27ENL2074Level 52026-27This module enables you to explore how works examine, contest, and imagine multiple forms of living ‘otherwise’ in a globally interconnected, but unequal, world through reading a variety of 20th and 21st Century Anglophone Literature. You can engage in lively, interlinked thematic debates, that might include Indigeneity and settler colonialism; nationhood and anticolonial resistance; diaspora; globalization and neocolonialism; world literatures and the neoliberal world-system; cosmopolitanism; the trans-Indigenous; environment and climate; and speculative futures. Primary works could include African, Caribbean, Indigenous, Irish, South Asian, MENA, Pacific Rim, and diasporic literary and cinematographic texts such as film and television.OptionalRenaissance Literature 2026-27ENL2018MLevel 52026-27Students studying Renaissance Literature have the opportunity to look in detail at a range of texts from the late Elizabethan period to the mid-1630s, including work by Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson and Mary Wroth. They also have the chance to explore the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced, and the effects that they had on the politics and culture of the British Isles in the period. Lectures aim to examine post-Reformation England and late humanism, patronage, gender relations, early modern literary theory, education and philosophy.OptionalRestoration Literature 2026-27ENL2021MLevel 52026-27Students taking Restoration Literature, the companion module to Renaissance Literature, can study in detail a range of texts written between the era of the English Civil War and the first decade of the eighteenth Century, including work by John Milton; Andrew Marvell; Aphra Behn; and John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester. Students have the opportunity to also study the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced. Lectures aim to examine the origins and effects of the civil war, the ethics of rebellion and reform, the Restoration theatre, religious controversies, gender relations, developing philosophical thought and Restoration manners.OptionalRomanticism: Literature 1780-1830 2026-27ENL2063MLevel 52026-27Students will study English literature of the Romantic period (1780-1830), including poetry, fiction, autobiography, and political polemic. The module will address revolutions in politics and literary form and ideas of nature, the sublime, sensibility and feeling, abolition and slavery, Enlightenment feminism, the Gothic, Orientalism, and childhood. Students will have the opportunity to study works by writers including William Wordsworth, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and Olaudah Equiano, placing them in their cultural context.OptionalStudy Period Abroad - English 2026-27ENL2028MLevel 52026-27This module provides an opportunity for English students to spend a semester at second level studying at one of the University’s partner institutions, developing academically and personally. During the semester abroad students undertake a course load at the partner institution of equivalent standard to that of one semester of the programme at Lincoln. Participation in study abroad also offers unique opportunities for personal student development in the wider sense, taking in cultural, sporting and social opportunities. In order to participate, students are usually expected to obtain a 2:1 or higher at Level 1, have a good record of attendance and participation, and must complete an application process. A limited number of places will be available each year, and participation is at the discretion of the Module Co-ordinator and the Programme Leader.OptionalThe Arthurian Myth 2026-27ENL2043MLevel 52026-27This module examines Arthurian narratives, myths, and traditions within a variety of contexts and media, and traces a variety of themes associated with Arthur and his court, including history and national identity; violence; kingship and rule; loyalty and betrayal; and love, sex, and gender roles. Students will be expected to assess the importance of a myth that spans more than a millennium and address how medieval texts made meaning within their specific socio-cultural situations, as well as how later periods make meaning through their deployment of the medieval in new contexts.OptionalVictorian Worlds: Literature 1830-1914 2026-27ENL2070MLevel 52026-27OptionalA Dream Deferred: Class in American Literature 2027-28ENL3072MLevel 62027-28OptionalAmerican Detective Fiction and Film: 1930 to the Present Day 2027-28ENL3081MLevel 62027-28Why have detective narratives proved so enduringly popular? This module will interrogate the iconic figure of the private eye in American popular culture, through the fiction and film of the twentieth and twenty-first century.OptionalContemporary American Fiction 2027-28ENL3017Level 62027-28This module offers an opportunity to engage with American literature (in a variety of forms) and some of its socio-historical, political and ideological contexts from the late 1990s to the present day. We will explore aspects of canon-formation in American fiction, and study a selection of texts by both new and established writers, in some cases at the point where they are first published in paperback. We will take a thematic approach, locating American cultural production in regional, national and global contexts, with a particular emphasis on writing in the 21st century. There are no pre-requisites for this module.OptionalContemporary Drama 2027-28ENL3004MLevel 62027-28OptionalGlobal Medical Humanities 2027-28ENL3100Level 62027-28OptionalGothic in Literature and Film 2027-28ENL3006MLevel 62027-28Monsters and attics, desolate landscapes, imprisonment and pursuit: the gothic genre emerged in the late eighteenth century to depict our darkest fears and desires. Termed 'the literature of nightmare', gothic departs from a realistic mode of representation and employs a powerful means of symbolic expression. Students are given the opportunity to investigate ways in which the genre has explored psychological and political anxieties, and themes of sexual and social transgression. We consider literary texts from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, including literature and film, and we give attention to sub-genres such as ‘female gothic’, ‘imperial gothic’ and ‘children’s gothic’.OptionalGrowing Up and Growing Old: Youth and Age across the Nineteenth Century 2027-28ENL3080MLevel 62027-28This module explores what it meant to grow up and to grow old in the nineteenth century, through often contradictory accounts of experiencing age categories from childhood to old age. Students will have the opportunity to examine various constructions of ageing, to reflect on age as a crucial facet of identity. This module considers age as a lens to explore the nineteenth century as a transitional period of growth and expansion as well as decay and decline, through a range of Romantic and Victorian texts.OptionalIndependent Study: English 2027-28ENL3043MLevel 62027-28In this module students have the opportunity to research in depth an author or topic of their choosing. Students are expected to commence research over the summer between Levels 2 and 3 and, on their return, have regular, one-to-one meetings with a tutor who is a research specialist in that field. The supervisor offers advice and direction, but primarily this module encourages independent research leading to the production of a 10,000 word dissertation.OptionalIrish Writing since 1900 2027-28ENL3071MLevel 62027-28This module is designed to examine how terms such as Ireland and Irishness have been constructed and questioned across the last century, a period of immense and often turbulent historical and social change. It aims to explore the representation of place, the nature of nationalism, the changing family unit, gender roles and Ireland's relationship to globalization in Irish poetry, drama and fiction.OptionalLife Writing 2027-28ENL3032MLevel 62027-28This module responds to the recent interest in the representation of lives within literary studies. It discusses a range of life representations (including biography, autobiography, letters, confessions, memoirs, and poems) from the Romantic period to the contemporary moment. Students may consider the origins of autobiography, address Modernist experiments with life representations, and discuss twentieth-century and contemporary innovations, including disability narratives and cross-cultural autobiographies. Themes such as the construction of selfhood, conceptions of memory, the relational self, and the ethics of life writing are addressed.OptionalLiterature and the Environment 2027-28ENL3050MLevel 62027-28The first principle of ecological thinking is that it is not only human beings that are meaningful, and that we are neither so separate from, nor so dominant over, the non-human as we tend to think. In this module students can explore what difference it makes to read literature from this perspective. We study literature as part of our complex interaction with our environment, and, perhaps sometimes, as a uniquely valuable one. Students can read texts from ancient Greek pastoral to contemporary dystopias, and from the poet John Clare to the woodland historian Oliver Rackham.OptionalLiterature and the Visual, 1770–1900 2027-28ENL3095MLevel 62027-28OptionalLost in the Funhouse: Experimental American Literary Fiction Since the Sixties 2027-28ENL3011MLevel 62027-28OptionalMadness, The Body, Literature 2027-28ENL3069MLevel 62027-28OptionalMedicalised Bodies in Art and Visual Culture, c. 1900 to the Present 2027-28AHS3009MLevel 62027-28This module will analyse how the medicalised body has been represented, exploited, challenged and reclaimed in art and visual culture. The themes, ideas, priorities and objects of medicine – such as death, health, sexuality, taboo, trauma, bodily functions, and viscera – have taken centre stage in art and visual culture since the end of the nineteenth century. This module will explore the manifold ways in which artists have engaged with subjects including medical technologies, disease, disability, blood, and pain, and we will do so in relation to constructions of gender, sexuality, race, class and ability. What significance do pathology, disease, and patient experience take on in art and visual culture? To what effects have artists portrayed and perhaps questioned modern therapies and medical technologies, and their subjects, practices and theories? We will focus on a range of media including painting, sculpture, performance art, conceptual art, film, and photography.OptionalMonsters and Violence in Middle English Romance 2027-28ENL3077MLevel 62027-28This module explores the representation of East-West contact in Middle English romances, with a particular emphasis on the interlacement of racial and ethnic otherness and on different types of violence, from martial exploits and religious coercion to rape and cannibalism. Students will have the chance to experience the breadth of the romance genre—its many thematic and topical branches, and its many sub-genres and their respective conventions—as well as insight to the actual act of crusading, and the cultural and social crises that arose from this act.OptionalMoving Home: Literatures of American Migration 2027-28ENL3070MLevel 62027-28OptionalNineteenth-Century Women's Writing 2027-28ENL3016Level 62027-28This module explores literature by nineteenth-century women writers through the Romantic and Victorian eras up to the suffrage campaigns. We explore how women negotiated cultural ideals of femininity and the challenges of authorship to produce writings across forms including novel, short story, poetry, play, and in a range of genres such as social realism, gothic, fairy tale and life writing. We consider how these works engage with contemporaneous social debates, especially about women’s social position. Authors addressed include Jane Austen, Anne Bronte, Dorothy Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, Mary Molesworth, Amy Levy and Elizabeth Robins. These works are interpreted in relation to their cultural context and in light of recent critical debates.OptionalPostmodernism: Apocalypse and Genesis 1967-2000 2027-28ENL3031MLevel 62027-28OptionalScience Fiction 2027-28ENL3036MLevel 62027-28This module considers the genre of modern science fiction and its evolution into one of today’s most popular narrative genres. Analysing a variety of forms – novel, short story, drama, graphic novel and film – students will have the opportunity to examine the socio-historical contexts of some of the most influential narratives of this period. This ranges from the emergence of “scientific romance” in the late nineteenth century, to late twentieth-century forms like cyberpunk and radical fantasy; from the problems of defining “genre fictions” and privileging science fiction over fantasy, to our enduring fascination with alternate histories, non-human agents (robots, animals, genetic hybrids, the environment), ecocatastrophe and post-apocalypse.OptionalSex, Texts and Politics: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer 2027-28ENL3078MLevel 62027-28This module concentrates on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with a particular emphasis on The Canterbury Tales, perhaps Chaucer’s most famous work. Students will have the opportunity to examine the General Prologue and a variety of tales in relation to their historical context and literary antecedents, and, throughout, specific attention will be given to questions of genre (ranging from fable and epic to satire and romance), literary authority, narrative construction, and medieval aesthetics.OptionalShakespeare I 2027-28ENL3074MLevel 62027-28This module provides an opportunity for students to study the works of Shakespeare in detail. The dissemination, influence, and adaptation of Shakespeare is unrivalled, and without an understanding of the conventions that the works dissolved and those that they initiated, a full appreciation of the canon of English literature is inevitably lessened. This modules challenges Shakespeare’s status as an icon of tradition and elitism by reading the texts in the light of recent developments in critical theory, and by locating them in the culture of their age. Students will be invited to examine the ways in which different theoretical approaches might have a bearing upon the interpretation of Shakespeare, they will also be conversant with the religious climate of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the conditions of performance and play-going in Shakespeare’s theatre, and the significant cultural and historical events of the period.OptionalShakespeare II 2027-28ENL3075MLevel 62027-28This module allows students to study the works of the Bard in detail, and to read them in the light of critical theory and literary history. Shakespeare’s plays are a cornerstone of the canon of English literature, but in wider culture they are often treated as inflexible repositories of ‘truth’ and ‘human nature’. This module will resist such approaches, and concentrate instead upon the ways in which the plays address the concerns of their day, as well as how they have been made to signify in other eras. Students can develop an understanding of how Shakespeare’s work dealt with early modern dramatic conventions, politics, and thought; how it addressed questions of history, religion, and race; and how it shaped the culture within which it was written. This module considers Shakespeare’s mature comedies, histories, and tragedies.OptionalSingle Author Study A 2027-28ENL3085MLevel 62027-28This module allows students to pursue an in-depth study of one author’s literary or dramatic works. The author of choice varies from year to year according to academics’ current research interests, but potential authors may include writers of fiction and/or poetry such as Angela Carter, Charlotte Bronte, Iain Banks, Thomas Pynchon, M.R.James, Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath; and dramatists such as Caryl Churchill, Thomas Middleton, Aphra Behn, Ben Johnson and debbie tucker green. Students will explore the writer’s oeuvre in terms of themes, style, and engagement with form and genre traditions, and with contemporary cultural debates. We also address practicalities of authorship such as the role of editors, publishing/performance formats, and different readerships/audiences. Students will also consider the writer’s legacies including the ‘afterlife’ of their works in adaptation. As well as studying texts, students will engage with conceptual debates about the role of the author : is attention to the author’s life an outmoded and over-deterministic approach to the study of a text? or a necessary part of contextualisation? As we scrutinise the figure of the author in biography, literary societies, literary tourism and popular culture, we ask : what purposes does the ‘author’ as a cultural construction serve ? and does this have anything to do with reading?OptionalSingle Author Study B 2027-28ENL3086MLevel 62027-28This module allows students to pursue an in-depth study of one author’s literary or dramatic works. The author of choice varies from year to year according to academics’ current research interests, but potential authors may include writers of fiction and/or poetry such as Angela Carter, Charlotte Bronte, Iain Banks, Thomas Pynchon, M.R.James, Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath; and dramatists such as Caryl Churchill, Thomas Middleton, Aphra Behn, Ben Johnson and debbie tucker green. Students will explore the writer’s oeuvre in terms of themes, style, and engagement with form and genre traditions, and with contemporary cultural debates. We also address practicalities of authorship such as the role of editors, publishing/performance formats, and different readerships/audiences. Students will also consider the writer’s legacies including the ‘afterlife’ of their works in adaptation. As well as studying texts, students will engage with conceptual debates about the role of the author : is attention to the author’s life an outmoded and over-deterministic approach to the study of a text? or a necessary part of contextualisation? As we scrutinise the figure of the author in biography, literary societies, literary tourism and popular culture, we ask : what purposes does the ‘author’ as a cultural construction serve ? and does this have anything to do with reading?OptionalThe 21st Century American Short Story 2027-28ENL3097MLevel 62027-28The short story is a peculiar and idiosyncratic form, but one that coalesces from a long tradition of fables, folktales, fairy tales, parables, and even sermons. Despite this lengthy heritage, it was not until the early 19th century, with writers such as Washington Irving, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe, that the short story became a recognised literary form. Since then, through writers such as Raymond Carver, Earnest Hemmingway, John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, William Gass and others, the short story has evolved into a complex, myriad, ambiguous literary art. In this module we will be reading 21st century US short fiction, in order to gain an understanding of the mechanics of the form in its contemporary incarnation, as well as its themes and structures. While working explicitly in the contemporary, we will also be thinking about the history of the short story as it has developed in the US. The primary texts move from standard realism, through speculative fiction, the gothic, and into science fiction.OptionalThe Literature of Childhood 2027-28ENL3010MLevel 62027-28This module explores how childhood is constructed in a wide range of literary texts – texts by adults for adults, by adults for children, and by children themselves. Underpinning the module is the notion of ‘childhood’ as a cultural construct into which writers invest various, even contradictory, meanings. Students have the opportunity to explore texts by adults who idealise or demonise the child to suit their personal and philosophical agendas. Students may then analyse the mixture of didactic and therapeutic agendas in enduring genres of children’s literature such as the fairytale, adventure story and cautionary tale. Finally, we turn to children as authors in a study of juvenilia.OptionalThe Making of English Literature: Georgian Literature, 1710-1832 2027-28ENL3030MLevel 62027-28Students reading Georgian Literature have the opportunity to study a selection of canonical and less well-known texts from the period and explore the historical and cultural context of their production. The module discusses developments in the novel from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen and innovations in poetry from Alexander Pope to Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth. Important themes include satire, sensibility, the Gothic, popular and polite culture, authorship, and Georgian theatre. Contextual discussion focuses on the ‘construction’ of nation, gender, class and empire, and the relationship of British literature to the Enlightenment and to Revolution.OptionalTwenty-First Century British Fiction 2027-28ENL3079MLevel 62027-28This module aims to explore new thematic trends, stylistic innovations and cultural developments in post-millennial British fiction, including a focus on globalising processes, transnational migration and digital technology. The module also addresses the development (and rethinking of the concepts) of gender and class in literature of the period and account for the continuing importance of the literary form in an age of digital publishing.OptionalWomen’s Writing and Feminist Theory 2027-28ENL3002MLevel 62027-28Students can study a diverse range of prose, poetry, and drama written by women from the eighteenth century to the present is considered alongside key concepts in feminist theory and the history of the women’s movement. Writers range from Mary Wollstonecraft to Zora Neale Hurston to Jeanette Winterson. Topics range from the feminine aesthetic and French feminism to feminist utopianism and cyberfeminism.Optional

              What You Need to Know

              We want you to have all the information you need to make an informed decision on where and what you want to study. In addition to the information provided on this course page, our What You Need to Know page offers explanations on key topics including programme validation/revalidation, additional costs, contact hours, and our return to face-to-face teaching.

              How you are assessed

              The University of Lincoln's policy on assessment feedback aims to ensure that academics will return in-course assessments to students promptly - usually within 15 working days after the submission date.

              Due to the vibrant and varied style of the English degree at Lincoln, the way you are assessed may vary for each module. Examples of assessment methods that are used include coursework, such as written assignments, reports, dissertations, blogs, and posters; practical assessments such as presentations and performances; and takeaway papers. The weighting given to each assessment method may vary across each academic year. The University of Lincoln aims to ensure that staff return in-course assessments to students promptly.

              Field Trips 

              Field trips organised by the School include visits to Newstead Abbey, former home of the poet Lord Byron, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. These are optional and participation on trips will not impact upon grades awarded on this programme. The costs of transport and entry fees, where applicable, are covered by the School. Students are, however, expected to cover their own subsistence costs while attending field trips.

              Staff ensure that students grow in confidence. They nurture students' passion and determination.

              Tayler Stevens

              BA (Hons) English graduate

              Study Abroad 

              Students undertaking this degree have the option to study abroad at one of the University’s partner institutions for one term during their second year. This can provide an insight into alternative approaches to the study of the subject and gives students the opportunity to experience another culture. Those who choose to study abroad are responsible for any associated travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

              What do our students think?

              Anna and Lucy share their positive experience studying BA (Hons) English at the University of Lincoln. They share their favourite parts of the course and how the University has prepared them for their careers.

              YouTube video for What do our students think?

              What Can I Do with an English Degree?

              The English programme at Lincoln can help you prepare for a range of career paths in the future. Former graduates have gone on to pursue careers in publishing, journalism, advertising, public relations, copy-writing, the civil service, and communications. Some choose to continue their studies at postgraduate level, while others undertake qualifications in teaching.

              Entry Requirements 2025-26

              United Kingdom

              104 UCAS Tariff points from a minimum of 2 A Levels or equivalent qualifications.

              BTEC Extended Diploma: Distinction, Merit, Merit.

              T Level: Merit

              Access to Higher Education Diploma: 45 Level 3 credits with a minimum of 104 UCAS Tariff points.

              International Baccalaureate: 28 points overall.

              GCSE's: Minimum of three at grade 4 or above, which must include English. Equivalent Level 2 qualifications may be considered.


              The University accepts a wide range of qualifications as the basis for entry and do accept a combination of qualifications which may include A Levels, BTECs, EPQ etc.

              We may also consider applicants with extensive and relevant work experience and will give special individual consideration to those who do not meet the standard entry qualifications.

              International

              Non UK Qualifications:

              If you have studied outside of the UK, and are unsure whether your qualification meets the above requirements, please visit our country pages https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/entryrequirementsandyourcountry/ for information on equivalent qualifications.

              EU and Overseas students will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency equivalent to IELTS 7.0 overall, with a minimum of 6.5 in each element. For information regarding other English language qualifications we accept, please visit the English Requirements page https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/internationalstudents/englishlanguagerequirementsandsupport/englishlanguagerequirements/

              For further advice on IELTS and the support available, please contact the International College by email at internationalcollege@lincoln.ac.uk.

              For applicants who do not meet our standard entry requirements, our Arts Foundation Year can provide an alternative route of entry onto our full degree programmes:
              https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/course/afyafyub/

              If you would like further information about entry requirements, or would like to discuss whether the qualifications you are currently studying are acceptable, please contact the Admissions team on 01522 886097, or email admissions@lincoln.ac.uk

              Contextual Offers

              At Lincoln, we recognise that not everybody has had the same advice and support to help them get to higher education. Contextual offers are one of the ways we remove the barriers to higher education, ensuring that we have fair access for all students regardless of background and personal experiences. For more information, including eligibility criteria, visit our Offer Guide pages. If you are applying to a course that has any subject specific requirements, these will still need to be achieved as part of the standard entry criteria.

              Fees and Scholarships

              Going to university is a life-changing step and it's important to understand the costs involved and the funding options available before you start. A full breakdown of the fees associated with this programme can be found on our course fees pages.

              Course Fees

              For eligible undergraduate students going to university for the first time, scholarships and bursaries are available to help cover costs. To help support students from outside of the UK, we are also delighted to offer a number of international scholarships which range from £1,000 up to the value of 50 per cent of tuition fees. For full details and information about eligibility, visit our scholarships and bursaries pages.

              Course -Specific Additional Costs

              Students should expect to obtain copies of the primary texts for all modules, and occasionally anthologies and/or critical texts as specified in module reading lists before the start of each year. Occasionally materials used in addition to these texts will be provided. Further materials for study are available in the University's library and online.

              If students choose to undertake an optional placement in the UK or overseas or study abroad, they will be required to cover their own travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

              Field trips are optional and participation on trips will not impact upon grades awarded on this programme. The costs of transport and entry fees, where applicable, are covered by the School. Students are, however, expected to cover their own subsistence costs whilst attending field trips.

              Find out More by Visiting Us

              The best way to find out what it is really like to live and learn at Lincoln is to visit us in person. We offer a range of opportunities across the year to help you to get a real feel for what it might be like to study here.

              Book Your Place
              Three students walking together on campus in the sunshine

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              The University intends to provide its courses as outlined in these pages, although the University may make changes in accordance with the Student Admissions Terms and Conditions.