Literature

Turn your love of reading into something more.

The study of literature allows you to explore the world and other cultures. Through reading we can travel through time, but also see our present in a whole new light.

At Essex we specialise in changing perceptions. We love the classics, but here is where you’ll get a fresh take. We want you to discover that your new favourite author is someone you’ve never heard of before. Together, as we look at everything from sci-fi to Shakespeare, we’ll revolutionise the definition of literature.

Study your passion, improve your writing and research skills and develop the kind of intelligence employers really value.

As a well-established home to practising poets, novelists and critics, literature and creative writing at Essex has a reputation for nurturing the most radical writers and thinkers. Our concerns are local and global: as readers and writers, we adopt a comparative method as we traverse near and faraway places, discovering new modes of writing and reconsidering classics.

Our research is internationally recognised across a wide range of specialisms in English, comparative, and world literature, including American, Caribbean, and European literature, Early Modern and Renaissance literature, Romanticism, translation studies and adaptation, as well as colonial and postcolonial literatures.