English Literature

Course summary

Students who choose the A Level English Literature course will spend much of the Lower Sixth year studying the literary genre of tragedy. As well as traditional and modern dramatic tragedies (Othello and Death of a Salesman) the course investigates how models of tragedy have been used in prose and poetry. In particular, we will be studying The Great Gatsby and a number of narrative poems by Keats. In the Upper Sixth there will be a further examination about Tragedy, which will revisit most of the texts used in the Lower Sixth. There is also a coursework unit, "Theory and Independence". Here pupils are asked to write about two different literary texts, preferably of their own choice, having thought about them in the light of one of a number of literary and cultural theoretical approaches. The final exam is entitled "Texts and Genres". Here pupils will be asked to study at least three texts which are grouped together as having elements of crime writing: the set texts are Atonement by Ian McEwan, Hamlet by William Shakespeare and an anthology of poetry, including work by Oscar Wilde and Robert Browning.