Comparative Literature/English Literature

Comparative literature is the study of literature across cultural and national frontiers, time periods, languages and genres, even across the boundaries between literature and the other arts. Pairing it with English literature allows you to move between close reading of texts in their original contexts and a broader perspective on how stories, ideas, and forms travel across languages and centuries. Together, these disciplines train you to think rigorously about meaning, interpretation, and the social conditions that shape what gets written and what gets read.

You will explore how literary traditions influence and respond to one another, examining texts from different national traditions alongside works of English-language literature. You will develop skills in textual analysis, theoretical reading, and cross-cultural comparison, learning to situate a poem, novel, or play within its historical moment while also asking what it means to readers in very different contexts. The programme includes a year abroad, which gives you the opportunity to study in another country and deepen your engagement with literary cultures beyond the UK.

Studying part-time allows you to balance your academic work alongside other commitments while still accessing the full depth of the curriculum.

The combination of disciplines builds an exceptionally versatile set of intellectual skills: the ability to read carefully and critically, to construct and communicate complex arguments, to work across linguistic and cultural boundaries, and to understand literature as both an aesthetic practice and a social phenomenon. Graduates go on to careers in publishing, journalism, teaching, translation, cultural policy, arts administration, and the civil service, among many other fields. Further study at postgraduate level is a natural route for those drawn to research, and a degree in comparative literature and English literature provides strong foundations for postgraduate work in literary studies, cultural theory, or modern languages.