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HONOURS DEGREE STRUCTURE
Session 2009-2010
An Outline for Prospective Students
Like all Honours degrees at Scottish universities, degrees in the Department of English Literature fall into two halves: the first two years, in each of which you study two other subjects alongside Literature; and the honours years, in which you study only the subject(s) named in your degree (see below, under Single Honours Degrees and Combined Honours Degrees).
In your first and second year courses in the English Literature department, you will be introduced to
a variety of ways of studying literature: the critical ideas and issues that surround literature,
and the ways these have been explored in contemporary literary theory;
some of the innovations in literature that took place in the two centuries between 1750 and 1950.
This is designed to give you both a deeper understanding of the ways in which we can understand literary texts, and a broad historical framework within which to place them, before you proceed to the wider choices and more specialised study of the honours years.
First Year Courses
You have a choice of first-year courses in our department: English Literature 1 or Scottish Literature 1. Both consist of three one-hour lectures per week, and a weekly one-hour tutorial discussion (in a small group of 7-9 students).
Both courses initially follow the same pattern and have lecture material in common, so that every student gains some experience of works from each of these national traditions.
The first half of the year will introduce you to some of the major stylistic aspects of literary writing. You will consider the variety of modes in which poetry, drama and prose can be composed and how best to analyse these. You will also be introduced to some of the practicalities of essay writing and the presentation of critical argument. The course will also introduce you to modern literary and critical theory and explore how these are related to the texts chosen for detailed study.
For Scottish Literature 1 students, these include work by modern and contemporary Scottish poets, J.M. Barrie and R.L.Stevenson in addition to other texts drawn from Scottish, Irish, and English literatures.
The English Literature 1 course introduces works by a wide range of writers in English, ranging from Milton and Pope, to Henry James, Muriel Spark and Samuel Beckett.
In the second semester of first year, the English Literature course will investigate the historical development of literature from the medieval period to the seventeenth century. It will introduce you to the most significant literary and dramatic modes of the pre-modern era and consider the different ways in which the 'literary' was defined across this period of time. Writers whose work will be explored range from Chaucer and Malory to Shakespeare, Spenser, and Donne, Dryden and Aphra Behn.
In the second semester of first year, the Scottish Literature course examines the relationship between national identity and literature at significant periods in Scotland’s political and cultural history. Writers to be explored include William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Scott, R.L. Stevenson, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, and Liz Lochhead. You will consider the specificity and particularity of literary production in Scotland in the Middle Ages, the Romantic period, the late nineteenth century, and in the Modernist and contemporary periods, and consider the different ways in which writing has expressed, questioned, and dissented from the idea of a literary and cultural identity which is distinctively Scottish.
Either course may form the first element in any degree including English Literature in its title, but both will be taken by candidates for a joint degree in English and Scottish Literature.
Set Texts for the First Year Courses
A finalised list of set texts for either or both courses will only be available after 1 September. They will be available under the heading of “Reading” on the English Literature 1 and Scottish Literature 1 websites.
However, many of the texts for English Literature 1 are included in the Norton Anthology of English Literature volumes 1 and 2 (eighth edition). These volumes will also be used for English Literature 2 and later years, and are therefore a worthwhile investment.
Students on both courses are recommended to purchase The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. by Vincent B. Leitch (Norton, 2001), to which frequent reference will be made in the introduction to critical ideas part of the course.
You may find it useful to consult any of the following for an introduction to literary criticism in general, although it is not expected that you will purchase them:
Peter Barry, Beginning Theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory (Manchester University Press: particularly recommended);
Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (Methuen);
Raman Selden, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (Harvester: a reliable, wide survey);
Roger Webster, Studying Literary Theory: an introduction (Arnold)
Assessment for both courses is by a combination of tutorial work, essays, and exams. Students must gain a pass in their first year course in order to proceed to English Literature 2 or Scottish Literature 2.
Second Year Courses
Once again you have a choice between English Literature 2 and Scottish Literature 2: a pass in either first-year course allows you to enter either second-year course.
Both these courses will share a set of lectures, developing the ideas introduced in first year. Each course will examine innovations in literature that took place in specific periods during the two centuries between 1750 and 1950.
In English Literature 2 authors discussed will include Blake, Godwin, Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Wollstonecraft, Austen, Keats, and Byron in the first half; and Wilde, Shaw, Conrad, Joyce, Eliot, Woolf, Yeats, Lawrence and Stein in the second half.
In Scottish Literature 2 authors discussed will include Burns, Macpherson, Smollett, Scott, Hogg, Galt, Ferrier and Carlyle in the first half; and Stevenson, Douglas Brown, Barrie, MacDiarmid, Shepherd, Grassic Gibbon, Willa Muir, and Neil Gunn. Major writers from Ireland and Northern Europe such as Goethe, Ibsen and Yeats will also be discussed to put Scottish writing in its international context.
Set texts may be found under the heading of “Reading” on the English Literature 2 and Scottish Literature 2 websites.
Teaching and assessment will follow much the same pattern as in first year, though with two degree examination papers to be sat at the end of the course.
Third and Fourth Year Courses
Having achieved a sufficiently good pass in one or both of the second-year courses (in the case of combined honours), students proceed to Honours.
Honours teaching is based around a menu of semester-long courses, taught through weekly two-hour seminars, built around the research expertise of a member of staff. In each of the Autumn and Spring semesters, single honours students will choose two from between 15 and 20 courses offered, making eight in all (joint honours students are usually choosing one). These courses may concentrate on a particular period, author, genre, or issue in literary theory. Over the two years students may choose to select courses that allow them to concentrate on eg. Scottish or American writing, women’s writing, drama or medieval literature. In addition the department offers a course in Creative Writing in each year, assessed by portfolio.
The only restrictions on choice are as follows:
Single honours students must choose one of their courses each term from a specific core historical period to fill in the gaps in historical coverage left by first and second year;
Students registered for the degree in Scottish Literature must take six of their eight courses from those focusing on Scottish texts or issues; those registered for the degree in English and Scottish Literature must take four such (see paragraph below for details of these degrees).
Entry to any honours course cannot be guaranteed, due to pressure of numbers: students may find themselves taking an alternative choice of course.
In addition, over third and fourth years the department offers 4 semester-long Critical Practice courses focussing specifically on “Research Methods for Honours”, “Prose”, “Poetry” and “Performance”. These are taken by all single honours students and may be chosen by combined honours students if their degree structure permits.
Every honours student will write a dissertation, an opportunity for independent research in an area of particular interest to the student.
Single Honours Degrees
The department offers three honours degrees:
in English Literature (this means anything in the English language, not just writing from England!). Students registered for this degree can take either of the first-year courses, and either of the second-year courses in any combination, eg. English Literature 1, followed by Scottish Literature 2;
in Scottish Literature (see above for honours requirements); again, any combination of first- and second-year courses is possible, although students taking this degree normally take (and are strongly recommended to take) Scottish Literature 1 and Scottish Literature 2 in first and second year;
in English and Scottish Literature (see above for honours requirements); students taking this degree must take both English Literature and Scottish Literature at first and second year level, and are indeed the only students allowed to do this particularly rewarding combination.
Combined Honours Degrees
These are the combined degrees currently available in the department of English Literature. Note that all require both subjects to be taken at first and second year level for entry to honours.
English Language and Literature
Celtic and English Literature
English Literature and Classics
English or Scottish Literature and
French; German; History of Art; Italian; Russian Studies; Philosophy;
Scottish Ethnology and English Literature
Scandinavian Studies and English Literature
Spanish and English Literature
English Literature and History
Scottish Literature and Scottish Historical Studies.
BA Humanities and Social Science (General) Degree
For students not wishing to specialise to the extent demanded by the single or combined Honours degree, the General degree allows you to maintain a wide spread of subjects over three years, and to combine subjects across a variety of Schools (eg. Literature with Sociology or Politics or Psychology), limited only by the constraints of the timetable and availability of places in particular courses.
The options here are many and complex (the degree is also available for part-time study): please direct enquiries to the College of Humanities and Social Science, David Hume Tower, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JX. See also the information on the BA in the Undergraduate Prospectus.
N.B.
[Every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained on this web page is correct at the current date. However, it will not form part of any contract between the University and a student or applicant and must be read in conjunction with the Terms and Conditions of Admission set out in the Undergraduate Prospectus. Prospective students should note that there will be some changes to the Honours curriculum in 3rd and 4th years from session 2009-2010.]
Formal details and regulations for the single and combined Honours degree programmes mentioned above are laid out in Degree Programme Tables for the College of Humanities and Social Science. Select the academic session in which you are interested. If you then select "Browse the Degree Programme Tables", Single Honours English or Scottish Literature and many of the combined degrees with English or Scottish Literature may be found under the link to the "School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures" but look also under the "School of Arts, Culture and the Environment", the "School of History and Classics", and the "School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Studies".
See also the links under the English Subject Area or link to full list of degrees found on the Degree Finder webpage in the Undergraduate Prospectus
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