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English Handbook

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Preface

WELCOME to the Department of English. The main subject areas covered by the Department are English Language, English Literature / Studies, Journalism and Communications. These subjects are all related. They all cover issues of language, communication and rhetoric. This Handbook will help to guide you through your time of study here. It is intended for both staff and students. It aims to give a clear account of what we do together, and to help you as a student to achieve a better degree by making sure that you understand what is going on.

The English Department is a community of learning and we warmly welcome you to it. The BA (Honours) degrees of the Department and the courses of the Foundation Programme have related aims (though different programmes have different emphases). We want you to become more fluent, accurate and thoughtful in your speaking of English. We want you to have the opportunity to become professional-level writers, with fluent powers of communication, able to write confidently in different media. We want you to develop a real understanding of literature, and so a wider and more mature intelligence. We value literature as morally and emotionally educative. We do not believe in "a monochrome version of what learning is" (i.e. 'training')*. Each BA degree has a full Programme Specification. This will tell you more about the exact educational nature of your particular degree.

The special circumstances of the University, its low student:staff ratio, and the intense feedback you get on your writing, can allow you to make faster progress. Take this chance with both hands. Here is an opportunity to become really educated. Good luck with your studies!

Here are some famous statements about Language and Literature that faculty find inspiring:

We are encumbered not only with too many new books: we are further embarrassed by too many periodicals, reports and privately circulated memoranda. In the endeavour to keep up with the most intelligent of these publications we may sacrifice the three permanent reasons for reading: the acquisition of wisdom, the enjoyment of art, and the pleasure of entertainment. (T.S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture)

Of course the exactness of science has an importance which is not likely to be underestimated. But the study of a language or a literature or any study that will increase and refine our ability to be through words is part of a battle for civilisation and justice and freedom, for clarity and truth, against vile fake-scientific jargon and spiritless slipshod journalese and tyrannical mystification. There are not two cultures. There is only one culture and words are its basis; words are where we live as human beings and as moral and spiritual agents. (Iris Murdoch, Writings in Philosophy and Literature )

Imagination is not to avoid reality, nor is it description nor an evocation of objects or situations, it is to say that poetry does not tamper with the world but moves it – It affirms reality most powerfully and therefore, since reality needs no personal support but exists free from human action, as proven by science in the indestructibility of matter and of force, it creates a new object, a play, a dance which is not a mirror up to nature but – As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight. (William Carlos Williams, Spring and All )

* Rowan Williams, Lost Icons, p.112.

The links below will take you to the other sections of the Handbook. If you prefer, there is a downloadable version of the whole Handbook (a PDF file of 132 KB) which is more convenient for printing. Please see our PDF FAQ page if you are unfamiliar with PDF format.