Get degree ideas using our A level explorer tool

English Literature and History

Entry requirements


A level

A*,A,A

Specific subjects/grades required for entry: including History and English Literature (or the combined English Literature and Language). Specific subjects excluded for entry: General Studies and Critical Thinking.

Access to HE Diploma

D:30,M:15

We require 60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at level 3 (or equivalent). Applicants may be required to meet additional subject-specific requirements for particular courses at Durham.

Cambridge International Pre-U Certificate - Principal

D3,D3,D2

To include English Literature and History

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

38

To include 6, 6, 6 from Higher Level subjects including History and English Literature or English Literature/Language.

Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)

H1,H2,H2,H2,H2

To include History and English

OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma

D*DD

Additionally an A Level in English Literature (or English Language & Literature) at grade A, plus an A Level in History at grade B or higher Where A Levels are unavailable we also accept IB Higher Levels and Cambridge Pre-U’s as an alternative. Please contact us if you have a different Level 3 qualification you wish to use.

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

D*DD

Additionally an A Level in English Literature (or English Language & Literature) at grade A, plus an A Level in History at grade A OR BTEC Extended diploma DDD, and an A level in English Literature (or English Language & Literature) and an A Level in History with grades A* and A Where A Levels are unavailable we also accept IB Higher Levels and Cambridge Pre-U’s as an alternative. Please contact us if you have a different Level 3 qualification you wish to use.

Scottish Advanced Higher

A,A,A

Specific subjects/grades required for entry: English at grade A. History at grade A.

Scottish Higher

A,A,A,A,A

We will normally make offers based on Advanced Highers. If an applicant has not been able to take 3 Advanced Highers, offers may be made with a combination of Advanced Highers and Highers, or on a number of Highers.

At Durham we welcome applications from students of outstanding achievement and potential from all educational backgrounds.  We will consider applicants studying T level qualifications for entry to many of our courses. Where a course requires subject specific knowledge and this is not covered within the T level being studied, you may need to supplement your T level studies with a suitable qualification to meet this requirement, for example at A level.  Where this is needed this will be clearly stated in our entry requirements. Detailed entry requirements can be found on individual course entries on our courses database https://www.durham.ac.uk/study/.

UCAS Tariff

152-168

We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

English studies

The Joint Honours in BA English Literature and History is a cross-disciplinary course, which develops and assesses skills that are common to both disciplines alongside others that are specific to each. The course offers you the opportunity to acquire a range of both literary-critical and historical knowledge.

The English part of your degree not only provides a thorough grounding in the ‘great tradition’ of English literature – from Chaucer and Shakespeare through to plays, poems and novels written in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – and in literary theory, but it also offers a wide range of imaginative and carefully designed modules.

The history element offers you one of the most varied, exciting and wide-ranging courses in the country. You will explore the full range of history from the end of the Roman Empire to the present day. You can also apply to add a placement year or a year abroad to your degree, this would increase the course from three years to four.

In the first year of your degree, you'll get an introduction into the disciplines of literature and advanced historical study. In the second year, you are required to engage with a range of periods and styles of literary and historical study. The third year will include a dissertation as well as optional modules for both subjects.

Modules

Year 1
Core modules:
Introduction to Drama
Introduction to the Novel
Introduction to Poetry
Romance and the Literature of Chivalry
Epic and Literature of Legend
Ancient Worlds and English Literature.
You will also complete three modules in History from a list which may include:

Decline and Crisis? Europe 1300-1500
Transformations in the Late Antique Mediterranean, c.300-c.700 CE
Connected Histories: Early Modern Europe, c.1450-1750
The Atlantic Archipelago, c.1500-c.1750
Modern Times: a Cultural History of Europe, c.1860-1960
Power in Africa
Imagining East Asia in the Modern World
Wars and Welfare: c.1900-1945
The Rise and Fall of American Slavery.
Year 2
Core modules:
Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism introduces the presuppositions and principles of literary criticism and issues of knowledge, value and ideology arising from the practice of reading. You will develop an independent critical sense in your own practice of reading.

Shakespeare introduces a broad range of Shakespeare’s work and will enable you to analyse in detail a selection of works from different periods of Shakespeare’s oeuvre and in different genres.

Examples of optional modules:
Chaucer
Victorian Literature
American Poetry
Contemporary US Fiction and the Question of Genre
Romantic Plays and Players
The Brontës
Medieval Islamic World
Modern China’s Transformations
Black British History
Photographic Histories.
Year 3 (Year 4 if undertaking a placement year or year abroad)
Core module:
In the third year you will produce a Dissertation, a large research project undertaken in either English Literature or History. This involves guided research on a topic of interest.

Examples of optional modules:
Restoration and 18th Century Literature
Old English
Old Norse
Literature of the Romantic Period
Post-War Fiction and Poetry
Keats and Shelley
Resistance in South Asian Postcolonial Literature
US Cold War Literature and Culture
1688: Monarchy and Revolution in Britain
Developing Africa
Mapping Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Sexual Revolutions: The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Britain and Beyond, 1920s–1970s.

Assessment methods

Most modules will be assessed by essays and end-of-year examinations. The third year will culminate with a dissertation.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£25,500
per year
International
£25,500
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course locations:

Durham City

College allocation pending

Department:

English Studies

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

90%
English studies

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

English studies (non-specific)

Teaching and learning

90%
Staff make the subject interesting
90%
Staff are good at explaining things
85%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
70%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

70%
Library resources
79%
IT resources
72%
Course specific equipment and facilities
80%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

88%
UK students
12%
International students
19%
Male students
81%
Female students
99%
2:1 or above
2%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

A*
A
A

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

English studies (non-specific)

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£20,000
high
Average annual salary
95%
med
Employed or in further education
62%
high
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

16%
Sales, marketing and related associate professionals
12%
Business, research and administrative professionals
10%
Teaching and educational professionals

English is one of the most popular degree subjects and in 2015, more than 11,000 students graduated with English degrees - although this does represent a fall from recent years. As good communication is so important to modern business, you can find English graduates in all parts of the economy, although obviously, you can't expect to get a job in science or engineering (computing is a different matter - it's not common but good language skills can be useful in the computing industry). There's little difference in outcomes between English language and English literature degrees, so don't worry and choose the one that suits you best. More English grads took another postgraduate course when they finished their degree than grads from any other subject - this is an important option. Teacher training was a common choice of second degree, as was further study of English, and journalism courses. But many English graduates changed course and trained in law, marketing or other languages -or even subjects further afield such as computing, psychology and even nursing. This is a very flexible degree which gives you a lot of options

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

English studies (non-specific)

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£23k

£23k

£28k

£28k

£31k

£31k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

Share this page

This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Course location and department:

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

Have a question about this info? Learn more here