English Literature (Edexcel)

The study of English literature develops your ability to communicate, collaborate, create and think critically - helping you to understand both yourself and others, have a rewarding career at university, and ultimately contribute to society. At A-level, you develop these capabilities by responding in creative, critical and analytical ways to fiction, poetry and drama.

Each of these types of literature is approached through a pair of texts, one older, one newer: Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' and Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', Shakespeare's 'Othello' and Tennessee Williams's 'Streetcar Named Desire', a selection of John Keats's poems and 'Poems of the Decade', an anthology of contemporary poetry.

As a result, you will be encouraged to interrogate past cultures, consider their relevance to today, and develop a more nuanced and empathetic understanding of other people, places and points of view. You will learn to use secondary sources and to think and write independently. And you will also have the opportunity to take part in extra-curricular activities that will add to your personal experience of literature, through theatre trips, poetry readings, and English Society debates. Literary learning is simply amazing.

Please click here for further information on our English Literature Curriculum.