Few subjects can be as rewarding or stimulating at degree level as English Studies and this is especially true for the literature course. A typical Q300 English Literature degree may cover many periods, authors and texts in the first year which enables the student to make an informed choice regarding the modules that they wish to study in the following years of study. Introductory courses may take a broad sweep approach to literature, simultaneously immersing the undergraduate in texts from the classics to the late twentieth century. An introduction to English Language and Linguistics is commonly taught to first year undergraduates as are the basic camps in the field of Literary Criticism.

• Classical Literature - Ancient Greek drama and Philosophy
• Anglo Saxon - Old English Myths, Legends, Pagans and Monsters
• Medieval Literature - Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain poet
• Early Renaissance Literature
• Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
• Restoration and Eighteenth-century Literature
• The Early Novel
• Victorian Literature
• Modernism
• The Post War Novel
• Post War Poetry
• Theatre of the Absurd
• Contemporary Literature
• Irish Poetry
• American Literature
• African American Literature
• Literary Criticism - Structuralism, Feminism and Postmodernism