I have so much to say about the way I was taught English Literature at Cambridge. I’ll start off by saying that I struggled. I got myself into a cycle of disappointing myself again and again, never able to live up to my own standards and eventually falling into a role of ‘not taking it seriously’ as a coping mechanism for the fact that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to. This was partly due to having undiagnosed ADHD for the overwhelming majority of my course, and therefore no accommodations (either from the university, or from myself— I blamed myself day in and day out for every inadvertent failure, which did a huge amount of damage to my self-esteem); however, I think there is something to be said more widely for how the course structure is inaccessible to many different groups of people, and doesn’t give everyone the opportunity to thrive. But that is for another post. Here, I am going to simply lay out the course structure in terms of content, with an explanatory note or two about how this looked in reality (esp. considering my degree overlapped with both national lockdowns).
If you support me by buying me a coffee, you’ll have access to more posts like this that go into the details of my degree and Cambridge as a university. Members will get even more access to some of my undergraduate essays, reading lists and lecture/course notes.
FIRST YEAR: PART I
I think the course has changed slightly since I graduated, but when I did it we had Part I and Part II to the course. Part I took up first and second year, and was essentially a whistle-stop tour through every era in England from early medieval to 20th century, plus a dissertation. Different colleges did these part I papers in different orders so that the whole year group weren’t trying to check the same books out of the library at the same time, but by the end of second year we had all done the same papers. For me, Part I had absolutely no bearing on my grade, but I hear that lower years have some aspects of Part I count towards their final grade.
Lectures were university-wide, and would have series that pertain to the time-period you’re doing. However, because of the college system, the lectures often don’t match up with what you’re studying that week, and so function more as supplementary education that widens your knowledge about the time period, rather than deepening your knowledge about the specific thing you’re doing.
Another thing to note is that these papers university-wide only determine the time period that you are looking at; it was down to your individual tutors in different colleges to set the syllabus inside that time period, so we were all studying different texts and authors based on what our supervisor wanted. This is why it’s really important to check out who the fellows are in your subject at each college before picking a college to apply for, because they will have a HUGE impact on your education. I would especially encourage anyone who is a minority identity to do this, as different professors and supervisors have very different attitudes to their syllabus; I was lucky enough to have a supervisor who believed in questioning the ‘canon’ and who encouraged us to look beyond it and seek out texts from other perspectives, but there are supervisors who will be totally rigid traditionalists, meaning you could be looking at two whole years of only studying texts by white men. The list below details the syllabus set by my professors within the parameters of each paper.
Practical Criticism was a paper that floated alongside whatever paper we were doing over the course of part I. PC was the practice of analysing unseen literature, undertaking close analysis without prior research and relying on one’s ability to dissect language spontaneously.
TERM 1: English Literature and its contexts 1830-1945
We did one author per week during this term, broken up by one week dedicated to Practical Criticism and another to a group seminar. The author studied was non-negotiable, but we were allowed for the most part to choose the texts of theirs that we read and wrote an out. We wrote an essay for each author studied and a PC essay.
Authors studied:
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Charles Dickens
George Eliot
Robert Browning
E.M Forster/Virginia Woolf
TERM 2: English Literature and its contexts 1500-1700
This paper was split not by author, but by form and genre. We were given freedom to choose our own authors and texts within these categories, with suggestions. I chose to only study women writers during this term (members can access a post that details this decision).
Topics studied (starred topics were classes, the others we wrote essays about):
Early Modern Literary Theory*
Poetry, Metaphysical and Beyond
Early Modern Drama
Prose
Writing Elizabeth I
Writing and the Reformation*
Paradise Lost
Material Renaissance
TERM 3: Shakespeare
I believe that since my time, this paper has been changed into a Shakespeare portfolio that contributes to your final grade (jealous!). All this means is that you do the term as a normal paper, but you choose your three best essays to submit as a portfolio that will be graded. For us, Shakespeare term was split by genre, and we were expected to write an essay on each that discussed at least two plays from within the genre. We also had a ‘set text’ Shakespeare (which was Cymbeline for us) that we studied separately in classes that combined people from different colleges in your year group.
Topics studied (starred topics were classes, others were essay weeks)
Comedy
Tragedy
History
Hamlet (got its own week cos it’s such a banger).
Sonnets*
Roman
Tragicomedy/Problem Plays
SECOND YEAR: PART I cont.
In second year, we continued on with the era-based papers, but we also had to write a dissertation of 5000 words, put together a portfolio and take Part I exams at the end of the year to test our knowledge so far. These exams seemed really pointless to me, because they didn’t count as part of our final grade. Again, I think this has all changed slightly since my time.
TERM 1: English Literature and its contexts 1300-1500
Dreaded Medieval term. For this term we were given a more rigid syllabus of texts, since they were much more difficult to read.
Texts studied:
Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl
Le Morte d’Arthur (Thomas Mallory)
The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
The Book of Margery Kempe
Troilus and Criseyde (Geoffrey Chaucer)
The Testament of Cresseid
TERM 2: English Literature and its contexts 1660–1830
This was called the ‘long eighteenth century’ paper, and was the one that I did for my portfolio. We were essentially given free reign on this paper, with our supervisor assuming a more supportive role and helping us along with the texts we decided on. There were some guiding aspects, though; some weeks, there was a set text that we were allowed to compare to a chosen text, and we had to do Austen. So, this is in some ways my personal syllabus!
Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe) in comparison to Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (John Cleland)
Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) in comparison to Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)
William Blake’s Bibles of Hell
Jane Austen (Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice)
Gothic literature
TERM 3: Exams on all the Part I papers.
THIRD YEAR: Part II
This year was made up of one compulsory paper that the whole year took: Tragedy, and then two optional papers that each of us chose out of a selection of nearly 17. I chose Medieval Supernatural (WHYYYYY) and Lyric (WHHHHYYYYYYYYY). We also had to complete another dissertation (that WOULD contribute to our final grade) of 7500 words on any topic at all, and take four exams: Tragedy, our two optional papers, and Practical Criticism/Critical Practice. Basically, this year was evil. My whole grade rested on this year, which really sucked because by this point I was totally exhausted and jaded, and none of the good work I did in previous years meant anything. Also, you weren’t allowed to plagiarise yourself in the final exams, meaning that I couldn’t reuse any of the stuff I wrote about in part I. SCAM!!!
TERM 1: Tragedy
This paper was amazing. I honestly wish it had been my whole degree. The stand out. Love love love. We studied the genre of Tragedy from the Ancient Greek tragedians to modern day and we had the freedom to write about novels, poetry, short story, theatre, film, music, dance, song lyrics, TV, visual art… literally anything! Only caveat is that we HAVE to do ancient greeks and Shakespeare. I am a very lateral thinker and enjoy linking themes and ideas across time and media, so this paper chimed with my brain way better than the era-based ones had. My supervisor gave us a loose structure for the term, but was flexible with us if we really wanted to do something else, so this list is a combination of suggested topics and my own choices.
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Shakespeare
Chekhov
Short Stories and the Cold: Building Fires in the Snow: A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction
Queering Tragedy in European film: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma) vs All About My Mother (Pedro Almodovar)
TERM 2: Option Papers
Another disgusting thing about third year was that we had to do our two option papers in ONE TERM, AS WELL AS our dissertations! Looking back I do not feel bad at all that I was head-in-the-sand style avoidant & struggling with my mental health. Too much. I can only speak for my chosen papers, here, which were heavily affected by strikes. Medieval Supernatural had all classes cancelled, so I essentially had to teach this paper to myself which was a bonafide nightmare since a lot of it is in DIFFERENT EFFING LANGUAGES. Catch me DEAD trying to read Medieval French again in my life.
Medieval Supernatural:
Melusine (Jean d’Arras) and Le Roman de Parthenay (Couldrette)
The figure of Merlin: Morte d’Arthur (Thomas Mallory), Vulgate (De Boron)
Marie de France
Werewolves (Bisclavret and Gorlagon)
Fairies
Lyric:
The Lyric ‘I’
Aesthetics of simplicity
Emily Dickinson
William Blake
Stevie Smith
TERM 3: EXAMZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Practical Criticism was ongoing for the three years, with differing supervisors. 
So there it is! Exhausting to read, exhausting to live. If you support me & buy me a coffee, or subscribe to my page, you’ll have access to more posts that aim to share knowledge about the English Literature course at Cambridge, including some of my undergraduate essays, lecture/course notes, reading lists and the worst feedback I got from supervisors! I’ll also be posting some think-pieces about the course and university as a whole.