English Literature

Course summary

English Literature A Level gives you the opportunity to read and study in detail a wide range of literary texts and plays from the Renaissance to the present day. As well as reading the texts themselves, you will consider the social, literary and historical context of the time they were written and examine some critical responses to them. During the course, you will: • Explore aspects of comedy in literary texts • Develop your reading, writing and analytical skills • Become a more independent learner and thinker • Apply critical theory to literary texts • Write about texts in a number of different ways. Texts on the syllabus include: • AQA Poetry Anthology • The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini • Small Island by Andrea Levy • Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake • Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare • The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy To succeed on the course, you will need curiosity, enthusiasm, creativity and commitment, and above all a desire to read literature. English Literature can be studied alongside a diverse range of other subjects, but students often choose to combine it with Drama and Theatre studies, Media Studies or Film Studies.