English Literature

Course summary

In the first year pupils will study Component 2: Comparative and Contextual Study, where the focus is on a literary genre: The Immigrant Experience, American Literature (prose) 1880-1940 or Dystopia, for example. There is a requirement to study an exam text: Small Island by Andrea Levy and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid being two recent choices, as well as reading widely around the topic area. A willingness to embrace literary criticism, to consider the contexts in which a work has been written and received, and an awareness of film and stage adaptations is essential. Towards the end of the year pupils begin to plan their coursework tasks, submitting titles to the exam board for approval at the end of the spring term. The coursework folder has a 3000 word limit, excluding titles, quotations, footnotes and bibliography, and should include comparison of a drama, a prose and a poetry text. The texts should all have been published and performed in 1900, or later, and one of the three must have been first published or performed after 2000. In the second year pupils study Component 1: Drama and Poetry pre-1900, comprising one Shakespeare text, with a range of choice from ‘Coriolanus’ to ‘Twelfth Night’, as well as one other pre-1900 drama text, The Duchess of Malfi or An Ideal Husband, for example, and some poetry, possibly, Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale, Coleridge’s Selected Poems or Tennyson’s Maud. All texts mentioned above are on the syllabus but all choices are subject to individual teacher choice.