English Literature MLitt

Please rest assured we make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the programmes, services and facilities described. However, it may be necessary to make changes due to significant disruption, for example in response to Covid-19.

View our Academic experience page, which gives information about your Newcastle University study experience for the academic year 2025-26.

See our terms and conditions and student complaints information, which gives details of circumstances that may lead to changes to programmes, modules or University services.

Module information is intended to provide an example of what you will study.

Our teaching is informed by research. Course content changes periodically to reflect developments in the discipline, the requirements of external bodies and partners, and student feedback.

Full details of the modules on offer will be published through the Programme Regulations and Specifications ahead of each academic year. This usually happens in May.

To find out more please see our terms and conditions.

Optional modules availability

Some courses have optional modules. Student demand for optional modules may affect availability.

This English Literature MLitt course is primarily taught on our city-centre campus. Your contact and study times vary across modules although teaching typically includes seminars, tutorials, presentations and independent learning. Where a number of people are working in a similar area we can offer small group tuition from research experts in the field.

The course gives you the flexibility to design a programme of study according to your own research interests. For example, you might choose to write four shorter research assignments of 6,000 words or two longer ones of 12,000 words. Whichever path you take, your learning will be supported through one-to-one supervision with a research specialist.

The course is made up of 180 credits:

• 20 credits for research training modules
• 80 credits for research assignments with a combined length of 16,000-20,000 words
• 80 credits for a 16,000-20,000-word dissertation, which is written in the spring/summer for full-time students or in the second year for part-time students

You may also attend lectures and seminars (not the assessments) for approved taught postgraduate modules.

Depending on your modules, you'll be assessed through a combination of:

• Dissertation
• Essay

Here are some examples of how your programme of study could be structured, in different research areas and with research assignments of different lengths.

MLitt in Children's Literature

• a research training assignment
• a research assignment 1: 5,000 words, ‘Ideology in the children's book’
• a research assignment 2: 5,000 words, ‘Real Children in Jan Marks' Thunder and Lightnings and Robert Westall's The Machine Gunners’
• a research assignment 3: 10,000 words, ‘Children Alone: Independent Child Characters in Philip Pullman and David Almond’
• a dissertation: 16,000-20,000 words, ‘Representing the Real Child: Social Realism in Selected Children's Literature, 1970s-1990s’

MLitt in Drama and Theatre Studies

• a research training assignment
• a research assignment 1: 5,000 words, ‘The Material Theatre: Reading Bodies, Space and the Rehearsal Process’
• a research assignment 2: 5,000 words, ‘Patterns of Repetition in Greyscale's Gods Are Fallen and All Safely Gone’
• a research assignment 3: 5,000 words, ‘Come Again? Iteration and Narrative Structure in Contemporary British Theatre’
• a research assignment 4: 5,000 words, Assignment attached to placement at Northern Stage
• a dissertation: 16,000-20,000 words, ‘Once More, From the Top: The Rehearsal Process as a Form of Collective Authorship in Contemporary British Theatre’

Our mission is to help you:

• stay healthy, positive and feeling well
• overcome any challenges you may face during your degree – academic or personal
• get the most out of your postgraduate research experience
• carry out admin and activities essential to progressing through your degree
• understand postgraduate research processes, standards and rules

We can offer you tailored wellbeing support, courses and activities.

You can also access a broad range of workshops covering:

• research and professional skills
• careers support
• wellbeing
• health and safety
• public engagement
• academic development

From 1 January 2021 there is an update to the way professional qualifications are recognised by countries outside of the UK

Check the government’s website for more information.

Home fees for research degree students

As a general principle, you should expect the tuition fee to increase in each subsequent academic year of your course, subject to government regulations on fee increases and in line with inflation.

Depending on your residency history, if you’re a student from the EU, other EEA or a Swiss national, with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you’ll normally pay the ‘Home’ tuition fee rate and may be eligible for Student Finance England support.

EU students without settled or pre-settled status will normally be charged fees at the ‘International’ rate and will not be eligible for Student Finance England support. You may be eligible for a scholarship worth 25% off the international fee. Search our funding database. 

If you are unsure of your fee status, check out the latest guidance here.

Scholarships

We support our EU and international students by providing a generous range of Vice-Chancellor's automatic and merit-based scholarships. See our searchable postgraduate funding page for more information. 

If you are an international student or a student from the EU, EEA or Switzerland and you need a visa to study in the UK, you may have to pay a deposit.

You can check this in the How to apply section.

If you're applying for funding, always check the funding application deadline. This deadline may be earlier than the application deadline for your course.

For some funding schemes, you need to have received an offer of a place on a course before you can apply for the funding.