English Literature

Assessment

The aim of the course is to develop students’ interest in and enjoyment of English Literature, through reading widely, critically and independently and thus to gain a wider sense of the scope of literary study. We prepare students in four components: drama (assessed in one examination worth 30%), including one play by Shakespeare plus one by another playwright drawn from those selected by the Exam Board; prose (in one exam worth 20%) comparing two prose texts linked by a chosen theme; poetry (in one exam worth 30%), including contemporary texts studied from the set collection Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 2002-2011 and the work of a prescribed individual poet or poetic movement; and Coursework (worth the remaining 20%), which offers students a free choice to compare in a single 3000-word essay two texts not otherwise studied in the course.