A Level - English Literature

English Literature is a study of the human condition: we read and interpret works of literature in order to understand, empathise with and challenge our perspectives of other human beings, and to scrutinise their loves, lives, tragedies and absurdities so that we may better understand our own.

You will not only be exploring philosophical and existential concepts that make up part of our human condition, such as: ‘What is Beauty?’, ‘What is Truth?’, ‘What does it mean to say that a text is ‘reliable’?’, ‘What is tragedy?’, ‘How does literature reflect both the self and society?’, and ‘How do we communicate what is incommunicable?’, but also investigating different literary forms and exploring how the very fabric of language and the literary ideas expressed within it, change through time. This is a course for those who are voracious and inquisitive readers; it provides an ideal space for literary discussion about a text’s conceptual and contextual ideas, about its characters and style, and it facilitates vital cultural and social understanding, whilst forming your own and listening to others’ critical interpretations - skills required not only at university level, but essential to how we communicate with one another in our modern context.

You will study a wide range of contemporary and traditional texts. The course is historicist, meaning that you will study texts through time until the present day. In the first year, you will be exploring how the universal concept of love is presented through time (Love through the Ages) by studying a variety of poems across time and in different literary traditions. You will be looking at this collection alongside F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In the same year you will be exploring the Shakespeare play Othello and unseen poetry.

In the second year, you will be independently researching and writing your coursework essay on two texts (one pre-and one post-1900). The last module of your course explores Texts in time. You will be studying the texts: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy and the prescient, popular dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, investigating how these texts reflect, challenge or criticise their socio-political and socio-historical contexts.

• Love through the Ages (40%)
• Texts in shared contexts (40%)
• 1 NEA coursework unit: (2,500 words) completed by students independently and marked by teacher (20%)

If you wish to apply to join our Sixth Form please complete the application process through Kent Choices.