English

As well as British literature, you can study works written in English from other parts of the world, and some originally written in other languages, allowing you to think about literature in English in multilingual and global contexts across time.

The course allows you a considerable degree of choice, both in developing your personal interests across core papers, and in choosing a topic for your dissertation and for a special option in your final year. Options have included Literature and revolution, Postcolonial literature, Writing lives, Old Norse, Tragedy, and Film criticism.

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The course at St Peter's

We encourage our students to read as broadly as possible, and to use their time at college to think and be curious about the world of books and ideas. We want them to make the most of the enormous opportunities available in Oxford, through the flexibility of the course, the richness of the libraries and museums, and the variety of expertise on offer.

We hope that our undergraduates will draw on other disciplines and cultural forms in their study and we regularly take groups to museums and to the theatre to enrich their textual study. We are often able to offer final-year students the opportunity of a subsidised reading trip in the Easter vacation of the final year. The English group as a whole forms a vibrant intellectual community, with a strong sense of identity within the college. Our students act, write, make radio programmes, play football, direct plays and are energetically involved with a whole range of activities in the college, and in the wider University.

We offer between six and eight places for English and its joint schools (History and English, and English and Modern Languages). At admissions, we are looking for applicants with drive, intellectual curiosity, and the potential to excel. We welcome students from all backgrounds and we try to make our interview process as transparent and accessible as we can. Each applicant is given two interviews, with two pairs of interviewers. The interviews will cover the information given on the UCAS form, the written work, and will generally involve some close reading of an unseen text, which is given shortly beforehand.