MA English Literature

Our English Literature MA offers the opportunity to pursue English literary studies at an advanced level. Here you will be able to develop the skills and knowledge required for textual, theoretical and historical analysis in your chosen field while participating fully in a vibrant research environment of published writers and researchers.

The programme consists of taught modules (Part One) mainly assessed by essays, followed by a dissertation (Part Two).

On this MA you can explore your interests across the wide-ranging field of English literary studies in their choice of taught modules, or they may elect to follow a programme of taught modules and one-to-one supervision in more specialised areas of interest. For those wishing to specialise there is also the opportunity to cluster module choices around particularly strong areas of department expertise, such as:

Medieval and Early Modern Literature: These are well-known and internationally recognised areas of expertise at Bangor. Members of the School of English undertake research in medieval English poetry, prose and drama; the literature of the Tudor period; the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; early modern book history; and seventeenth-century literature in poetry and prose as well as on the stage. Particular areas of interest  include Chaucerian studies, medieval romance, Arthurian literature, medieval and early modern drama, pre-modern travel writing, early modern memory studies, George Herbert and devotional poetry, autobiographical writing, Milton, polemical prose, words and music, manuscript studies, and the work of women writers across the medieval and early modern periods. These wide-ranging topics are reflected in the choice of modules and dissertation topics available to students.

Material Texts: This subject area introduces the postgraduate student to many of the methodologies associated with the history of the book, the sociology of texts, the history of reading and the theories associated with editing. The investigation of the material text and the circumstances of production and consumption are growing areas within the discipline of literary studies.  Students may examine a range of texts from medieval and early-modern manuscripts, through early printed books (known as incunabula) and on to the serialised texts of the Victorian period, as well as looking at cinema, screenplays and contemporary technologies of self-representation.  The modules on offer in this area make the most of the School’s expertise in book history and scholarly editing, as well as Bangor University’s particularly strong archive collections (including the Cathedral Library) which contain everything from locally produced printed ephemera to documents pertaining to plantations in Jamaica. The School is also actively involved in several digitisation projects, and many of the modules will consider the impact of the latest technological revolution upon literary studies.

Revolution and Modernity, 1750 to the Present: This area of expertise – unique in the UK – offers students the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the historical, cultural and literary forces that have shaped our contemporary age. Here the student may explore a variety of visual and verbal print cultures, spaces and identities in order to unravel the complex relationship between texts and their contexts. Bangor University, with its neo-Gothic architecture (1911) and its proximity to Telford’s pioneering Menai Suspension Bridge (1826), is itself a physical embodiment of aesthetic revolution and the pursuit of modernity.  Students are encouraged to make use of the University’s extensive archives and to take part in the research activities of the School and wider College of Arts and Humanities. While honing their knowledge of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century texts, students will also become fluent in contemporary scholarly discourse and develop their own critical voice.

Four Nations Literature: This area of expertise offers the opportunity for pioneering study of the literatures of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In so doing it represents a shift in the focus of the MA in English Literature, inviting postgraduate students to explore in greater detail the literatures of the four nations in the British Isles. It aims to widen the scope of traditional English Literature courses by seeking out continuities and contrasts between the literatures of Britain and Ireland in the modern period. In particular, the Four-Nations emphasis investigates the ways in which the literatures of Britain and Ireland register the effects of modernity on British and Irish culture and society, from the late eighteenth century to the contemporary moment. Bangor University, being conveniently located between London, Dublin and Liverpool, is the ideal place to examine such issues.

The Open Pathway offers students the opportunity to pursue a broader portfolio of advanced literary studies in English by completing the compulsory modules and a free choice from all the available optional modules on offer.

Programme Length

MA: 1 year full-time; 2 years part-time; Diploma: 9 months full-time (also available part-time)