English and Portuguese

English and Portuguese at Oxford is a rare and intellectually demanding combination that brings together the study of English literature, one of the richest and most studied literary traditions in the world, with the study of Portuguese and its extraordinary global literary heritage. Portuguese is spoken across Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and other communities across Africa and Asia, and the literatures of these different Lusophone contexts are strikingly diverse: medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry, the epic of Camões, the existential prose of Pessoa, the modernism of Saramago, the magic realism of Latin American Portuguese, and the post-colonial literatures of Africa that are only now receiving the international attention they deserve.

At Oxford, this four-year programme develops your Portuguese language proficiency from whatever level you begin to an advanced standard, alongside intensive engagement with English literature from the medieval period to the present. You will read widely in both traditions in the original, developing the close reading and analytical skills that Oxford's tutorial system cultivates at an exceptionally high level. The programme develops your ability to engage with questions of language, form, and cultural context across two quite different literary and linguistic traditions, giving you a genuinely comparative perspective on both.

Oxford's resources in English and in Portuguese and Lusophone studies are exceptional, and you will have access to a scholarly community with deep expertise across both fields. The university's libraries and collections provide unusual depth for a subject that is not always well served at other institutions.

Graduates pursue careers in publishing, translation, journalism, academia, cultural organisations with Lusophone connections, international business, law, and diplomatic service. The combination of English literary training and Portuguese language and literary expertise from Oxford is genuinely distinctive, and postgraduate study in English, Lusophone studies, or comparative literature is a natural further direction.