English Literature

Assessment

Paper 1: Aspects of Tragedy. Students explore Shakespeare’s Othello, Miller’s Death of a Salesman and collected works of poet John Keats, examining how each writer works with the tragic genre to understand and appreciate what it is to be human. Paper 2: Social and Political Protest Writing. Students examine Hosseni’s The Kite Runner, Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience through a social and political lense, learning how writers use their work to engage the consciousness of society to evoke change. There is an unseen section to this exam, students prepare for this through the analysis of various work of political protest writing. Coursework: Students select one prose and one poetry work to examine through their chosen critical lenses. Students can choose from Feminism, Marxism, Eco-Critical or Post-Colonial theory, or examine the narrative structure and restrictions of a text, or its place in literary canon.