Overview
If you want a future with fewer limits, this is the degree for you. When you study English Literature at Portsmouth, you'll also explore history and politics, society and culture, human relationships and identities, and how we choose to live. And you’re doing it in a city steeped in lively literature, from Charles Dickens to Neil Gaiman.
You’ll explore complex, challenging issues – from masculinity to the Holocaust. You’ll learn the skills to critically analyse the purpose, truth and impact of any written text. You’ll also develop the skills to produce your own writing and presentations, so you can communicate original ideas in ways that engage and influence readers.
The combination of creative thinking and rigorous analysis you develop will make you a compelling candidate for all kinds of jobs – from marketing to museums, and journalism to publishing.
Course Highlights
- Discover our literary city with the constantly evolving Portsmouth Literary Map – your course begins with a tour of literary Portsea and the Dockyards area, introducing significant places in the lives of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Neil Gaiman, Simon Armitage, today's local writers, and plenty more
- Enjoy the freedom to interpret assignments creatively, and develop employable skills in presentation and teamwork, on a course without exams
- Learn directly from staff who produce world-leading research into areas as diverse as magical realism and representations of food
- Build specialist knowledge by choosing the topics that match your interests – from global literature to dystopian and apocalyptic environments, from women’s writing to crime writing
- Develop your own style and build up your writer’s portfolio by becoming a contributor to our Writing Literary Portsmouth blog
- Learn what makes a winning book, from the Man-Booker to the Nobel Prize
- Curate your own literary prize or produce a prize pitch, to experience what happens when writing meets the commercial marketplace
- Build a professional network with high-profile figures including authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, prize judges and critics through our contacts and partnerships
- Have the opportunity to do a work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates
- Choose to learn a foreign language for free as part of your degree, from a selection of Arabic, British Sign Language, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin or Spanish
Careers and opportunities
Why study English literature? There are many reasons, but one of the best things about an English literature degree is that it draws on many diverse skills and ways of thinking critically.
This makes English literature one of the most versatile subjects you can study, creating a wealth of career opportunities.
This English literature degree will set you up to pursue careers in fields where communication and critical thinking matter. We outline some of these below, but employers in many more industries recognise the value of the transferable skills you’ll gain by choosing to study English literature. Your CV will demonstrate:
- sophisticated analytical skills, enabling you to assess texts on any topic
- the ability to think critically and reach your own independent conclusions
- a flair for presenting and discussing ideas with diverse audiences
- the confidence to say exactly what you mean to say, in writing and in person
- a creative mindset that helps you see things differently and solve problems
- a well-developed sense of empathy and teamworking skills
What areas can you work in with an English literature degree?
After the course, you could work in areas such as:
- advertising
- journalism
- arts and media
- public relations
- copywriting
- teaching
- research
You could also study at postgraduate level.
Graduate destinations
Roles our previous English literature graduates have gone onto include:
- copywriter
- journalist and editor
- marketing executive
- teacher
- paralegal
- sales executive
- museum curator
