Find out more about studying English Literature MA at Lancaster University? We've gathered all the key details, entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
MA - Master of Arts
Main Campus
Part Time
Apr 2026
2 Year
Develop your critical voice as you select your own path through a rich engagement with literature from the medieval to the contemporary. You will be guided throughout by a focus on the themes of world, spirit, body and place. This quartet of foundational critical terms reflects major Lancaster research strengths and will provide you with a gateway to literary study of all kinds, both established and experimental.
Why Lancaster?
Study with eminent Lancaster critics and scholars
Be inspired by our rich programme of literary events on campus, online, and in the city’s historic Castle Quarter
Discover quiet corners in the University Library – from cosy study nooks to collaborative workspaces and the bespoke Postgraduate Study Space
Get involved with our four student-run literary journals: Cake, Lux, Flash, and Errant
Present your work at our Literary Studies Conference, usually held in the impressive surroundings of Lancaster Castle
Enjoy the benefits of our partnership with the archive-rich Wordsworth Museum at Grasmere, including internship opportunities
Quartet
Each element of our quartet of themes provides the focus for one module and will be studied through a range of texts from different periods that work on and around that theme. The ‘World’ module, for example, will examine both ancient and modern models of the world and such related terms as globe or cosmos, and consider how our texts reflect and/or refract those models.
Each theme is taught by eminent critics and scholars with specialisms from right across the spectrum of literary studies. In your written work you can, though, choose to focus on a particular period.
A choice of focus and a choice of form
At all times you can choose not only what you write on but how – whether that be writing in a classical literary-critical style or experimenting with creative forms of literary criticism. You’ll be able, that is, to undertake anything from textual scholarship or literary theory through to creative re-writing or citational collage.
As the programme unfolds, you’ll get to know those tutors whose research is especially attuned to your interests and they’ll support you as you plan and develop your independent research project. This could, if you wish, be an action-based project involving, say, our annual full-scale Shakespeare performance at Lancaster's historic Castle or our partners at the Wordsworth Museum at Grasmere and /or Lancaster’s annual LitFest, the UK’s third-oldest literary festival.
