English Literature
Examination Board AQA
Course Code: 2740
AS Units 1 & 2
Unit 1 Texts in context. Victorian Literature.
Unit 2 Creative study Coursework. 2 tasks: Prose & Drama.
A2 Units 3 & 4
Unit 3 Reading for Meaning. Love through the ages.
Unit 4 Extended essay and Shakespeare study.
The course studies Victorian Literature, Love through the Ages and Shakespeare but students are encouraged to read as widely as possible to gain a better breadth of knowledge of literature in general. As well as studying how a variety of texts functions as a self-contained piece of writing, students develop thorough analyses skills involving:
• studying the historical background of the text, or its relationship to the society of the author
• placing it within a tradition, whether a formal tradition (eg. dramatic tragedy) or a historical or thematic tradition (eg. Victorian supernaturalism; women’s liberation).
• applying critical models, known as literary theory, to the text that they are studying.
Literary theory includes, for example, postcolonial and feminist models of how literature can reveal or conceal power relationships. Alongside the text itself, students read critical, historical, and theoretical works that place the text in context or provide new ways of looking at it.