English Literature

Awards available	MPhil MLitt PhD
Duration of programme	MPhil: one year full-time; two years part-time MLitt: two years full-time; four years part-time PhD: three years full-time; six years part-time
Number of places	Not fixed

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Programme overview

The Department of English has a long and distinguished tradition in research and criticism: previous professors have included LC Knights, Frank Kermode, Christopher Ricks, Henry Gifford, Pat Rogers, Charles Tomlinson, John Burrow and Tim Webb.

We bring the core values of our discipline - textual scholarship, critical and theoretical analysis, contextual knowledge - to the dynamic, changing field of literary and cultural study. Research is conducted across the full chronological range from the medieval to the contemporary period, with many colleagues engaged in interdisciplinary research. We are proud of our significant expertise in Medieval, Early Modern, Romantic and Victorian literature; in poetry; in reception history; in modern literary theory; and in contemporary writing. We also host the Bristol Poetry Institute which brings together scholars, students, poets and poetry-lovers across the University of Bristol and the wider community.

Research groups

The Department's research environment fosters a wide range of activities that thrive on a high level of interaction and collaboration between individual scholars (both staff and students). These range from international conferences (for example 75 Years of Penguin Books, 2010), one-day conferences (such as The Seven Ages of Dylan in 2011, Romanticism and Secrets in 2012, and Revenge and Gender from Classical to Early Modern Literature in 2012), study days (for example Literature and Theology in 2011), and research and reading groups (such as the Early Modern Research Group and the Critical Theory Reading Group).

Members of staff play a prominent role in the activities of major research centres: Professor Ad Putter is Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies, which organises research seminars and conferences and maintains international research links through the Worldwide Universities Network; and Professor Andrew Bennett is Director of the Centre for Romantic Studies, which organises conferences and study days. Professor Daniel Karlin is Director of the Bristol Poetry Institute, which draws on the Department's established strength in this field. Professor Ralph Pite is Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies, the University's major forum for interdisciplinary research.

The departmental research seminar, which meets throughout the academic session, is the principal forum for academic staff and graduate students to present and discuss their recent research. At each session there is a mix of speakers from outside Bristol (including independent scholars as well as those affiliated to other universities), graduate students, and members of staff. Two annual lectures - the Churchill Lecture and the Tucker-Cruse Lecture - also bring distinguished scholars from outside the University (in 2013 Professor Rachel Bowlby from UCL and Professor Cathy Shrank from Sheffield). The School of Humanities Seminar, which meets twice in each semester, offers the opportunity for wide-ranging interdisciplinary conversation around a chosen theme, which is organised by different departments. In 2010, the English Department convened a school seminar on Representations of Poverty with contributions from the departments of English, History, History of Art, and Religion and Theology.

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Entry requirements

MPhil: An upper second-class degree (or international equivalent). MLitt/PhD: A pass at MA level (or international equivalent).

For information on international equivalent qualifications, please see our International Office website.

Admissions statement

Read the programme admissions statement for important information on entry requirements, the application process and supporting documents required.

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Key research interests

Dr Tamsin Badcoe, Early Modern prose fiction, especially the writings of Thomas Nashe; Early Modern book trade; Edmund Spenser and representations of 'space' (actual and metaphorical) in The Faerie Queene.

Dr Jennifer Batt, 18th-century poetry, particularly the circulation of verse in manuscripts, pamphlets, miscellanies, songbooks, periodicals and newspapers; labouring-class writing; digital humanities.

Professor Andrew Bennett, 19th- and 20th-century literature; Romantic poetry and poetics; reception and literary reputation; literary theory; comparative medieval literature (French, Dutch, Latin, English); the popular romance and the popular ballad; alliterative tradition.

Dr Stephen Cheeke, 18th- and 19th-century poetry, especially Shelley and Byron; genre theory; writing and history; De Quincey; Romanticism and place.

Dr Lesel Dawson, Early modern drama; revenge tragedy; the representation of women in early literature; early modern constructions of lovesickness and melancholy; Shakespeare; John Ford; Thomas Middleton; medical history.

Dr Jane Griffiths, Late medieval and early modern poetry and poetics; ideas of literary authority; the reception of medieval works in the Renaissance; the practice of glossing.

Dr Cathy Hume, Medieval literature and its social and cultural contexts; reworkings of episodes from the Old Testament in late medieval English verse; Chaucer; the representation of love and marriage in late medieval literature, including Gower; interaction of French and English literatures and medieval multilingualism more generally.

Dr Stephen James, Modern poetry and authority; poetry and translation; textual revisions; refrains and repetitions; poetic influence; poetry of the night; poetry of political witness; Charles Dickens.

Dr Hester Jones, Literature and theology; early modern writing by women; gender and identity in 19th- and 20th-century writing; friendship; 20th-century poetry.

Professor Daniel Karlin, 19th- and 20th-century British, Irish, and American literature, especially Romantic and Victorian poetry and poetics; textual criticism and editorial method; Anglo-American and Anglo-French literary relations; Robert Browning; Rudyard Kipling; Marcel Proust; Bob Dylan.

Dr John Lee, Shakespeare; English Renaissance drama; Spenser; Greek tragedy; some constructivist theories of language, personality and literature; Kipling.

Dr Samantha Matthews, Literature and culture of the long 19th century, especially noncanonical poetry; poetic afterlives, reception and literary reputation; death and commemoration in 19th-century literature; albums, scrapbooks and album verse; the Victorians in the 20th century, especially Tennyson; Dickens; book history, especially 19th-century manuscript and print culture; book arts; London in literature and art since 1666.

Dr Ulrika Maude, Modernism and postwar writing; medical humanities; modernist literature; perception and philosophies of embodiment; Samuel Beckett; post-war English and American fiction.

Dr Kate McClune, Older Scots literature; 15th- and 16th-century Scottish and English manuscript culture; Arthurian literature.

Professor Ralph Pite, Romantic literature, especially Coleridge, Keats and contemporary responses to Dante; Victorian fiction; contemporary poetry; Thomas Hardy; writing and the environment.

Professor David Punter, Critical theory, Romantic and Gothic literature; psychoanalysis; contemporary fiction and poetry.

Professor Ad Putter, The Gawain-poet; Arthurian romance; comparative medieval literature (French, Dutch, Latin, English); the popular romance and the popular ballad; alliterative tradition.

Dr Theo Savvas, Contemporary multi-ethnic writing of America, particularly postmodernist fiction; the relationship between history and fiction.

Dr Tom Sperlinger, 19th- and 20th-century novel, poetry and story (Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry Green, Virginia Woolf, Raymond Williams, Frank O?Hara, Doris Lessing and Alice Munro); adult education; American Jewish fiction and literature (of various kinds) related to Israel/Palestine.

Dr William Wootten, Modern and contemporary poetry (Britain, the Commonwealth and the United States); poetry publishing (especially Penguin); creative writing.

Dr Jane Wright, 19th-century literature, particularly Victorian poetry and literary criticism (and especially Tennyson, Clough, Arnold, Hopkins).

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Apply online

Application deadline: Not fixed