English (18th Century and Romantic Literature)

Entry requirements

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK Masters (Pass).

Months of entry

January, April, October

Course content

Research in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature flourishes in the Cambridge English Faculty. The diversity and intensity of thought and art in this formative period are reflected at every level of our teaching, conversation and writing. Doctoral students participate in a research community which meets regularly, and which offers support and training from peers and professionals. The Cambridge tradition of close collaboration with a supervisor is enriched by opportunities to present and hear research papers, to participate in professional training, and to contribute to specialist and general undergraduate teaching.

At Cambridge established traditions of close reading and attention to literary form are invigorated by an equal concern with innovative and challenging ideas. Here, there are as many approaches to criticism in the period as there are long eighteenth centuries, Enlightenments, or Romanticisms. The lively conversation between literature, philosophy and art in the eighteenth century constitutes one marked emphasis of our research. The Cambridge English Faculty is also a notable centre of Lyric Studies, the poetry of the Romantic period being a particular focus. However, long poems, hymns, novels, essays, and other kinds of writing, both fictional and non-fictional, figure strongly in our criticism. The interrelation of literature with other disciplines is well represented, too, by Faculty members working on aesthetics, material texts and cultures, economic and political theory, the study of language, classical antiquity, theology, and working class and children's literatures.