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Whether undertaken for the continued love of literature, or for personal or professional development, studying our Distance Learning MA English Literature will help you gain a more confident critical voice and advanced analytical and research skills.

Studying via Distance Learning means you have access to a wide range of resources, staff experience and scheduled online classes, while working from wherever you are in the world. 

Whether undertaken for the continued love of literature, or for personal or professional development, studying our Distance Learning MA English Literature will help you gain a more confident critical voice and advanced analytical and research skills.

Stories powerfully shape our experiences and identities in the modern world. Books and films instruct us about how the voices of the past inform the present and the future. They tell us about politics, about gender, sexuality and race, our landscape, environment and the digital. Stories are told about places and people, but also show how modern myths are made. How can we read such stories critically? 

English Literature at Northumbria gives you the key skills to navigate and offer a critique of narrative and storytelling. How is literature politicised? How are classic texts adapted for the contemporary moment? Literature’s continued relevance is everywhere. Our course gives you the skills to understand the importance of literature: who has the authority to influence, and with what motives. Culminating in a major piece of research of your own, you will shape debate and ideas in your chosen field of literary studies, showing mastery of the discipline and an ability to redefine our approach to the stories that shape our world. 

You will be taught by internationally recognised scholars who are at the cutting edge in their field. Our modules draw your ideas and our research specialisms together, allowing you to develop your own ideas within communities of research and new ideas.

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences is home to many exciting research groups. Within English we have particular strengths in the Early Modern period, the Long Eighteenth Century, Modern and Contemporary, and Gender. The diversity of our expertise means we can support you in pursuing your interests.

This course is an ideal choice for anyone interested in literature and who wants to develop a mastery of the subject as a basis for continuing higher research, or for taking your advanced cultural and intellectual skills into the marketplace. You might you want to develop your employability prospects, or you might be interested in continuing your studies at PhD level, but are still looking for inspiration on exactly where to focus. The MA will also provide you with the professional skills to succeed within teaching, marketing, publishing, museums/archives, public policy, management, among many others.

Whether undertaken for the continued love of literature, or for personal or professional development, studying our Distance Learning MA English Literature will help you gain a more confident critical voice and advanced analytical and research skills.

Studying via Distance Learning means you have access to a wide range of resources, staff experience and scheduled online classes, while working from wherever you are in the world. 

Whether undertaken for the continued love of literature, or for personal or professional development, studying our Distance Learning MA English Literature will help you gain a more confident critical voice and advanced analytical and research skills.

Stories powerfully shape our experiences and identities in the modern world. Books and films instruct us about how the voices of the past inform the present and the future. They tell us about politics, about gender, sexuality and race, our landscape, environment and the digital. Stories are told about places and people, but also show how modern myths are made. How can we read such stories critically? 

English Literature at Northumbria gives you the key skills to navigate and offer a critique of narrative and storytelling. How is literature politicised? How are classic texts adapted for the contemporary moment? Literature’s continued relevance is everywhere. Our course gives you the skills to understand the importance of literature: who has the authority to influence, and with what motives. Culminating in a major piece of research of your own, you will shape debate and ideas in your chosen field of literary studies, showing mastery of the discipline and an ability to redefine our approach to the stories that shape our world. 

You will be taught by internationally recognised scholars who are at the cutting edge in their field. Our modules draw your ideas and our research specialisms together, allowing you to develop your own ideas within communities of research and new ideas.

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences is home to many exciting research groups. Within English we have particular strengths in the Early Modern period, the Long Eighteenth Century, Modern and Contemporary, and Gender. The diversity of our expertise means we can support you in pursuing your interests.

This course is an ideal choice for anyone interested in literature and who wants to develop a mastery of the subject as a basis for continuing higher research, or for taking your advanced cultural and intellectual skills into the marketplace. You might you want to develop your employability prospects, or you might be interested in continuing your studies at PhD level, but are still looking for inspiration on exactly where to focus. The MA will also provide you with the professional skills to succeed within teaching, marketing, publishing, museums/archives, public policy, management, among many others.

Course Information

Level of Study
Postgraduate

Mode of Study
2 years Part Time (Distance Learning)
3 other options available

School
Humanities and Social Sciences

Location
City Campus, Northumbria University

City
Newcastle

Start
September 2026

Fees
Fee Information

Modules
Module Information

Videos / English Literature

Watch Programme Leader Dr Rosie White tell us about this Distance Learning Masters in a Minute (or so...) and then hear about Emma's experience as a student on the course.

Entry Requirements Modules Overview Fees, Funding  and Scholarships Study Options

Entry Requirements 2026/27

Standard Entry

Applicants should normally have:

A minimum of a 2:2 honours degree in English, or a related discipline.

International qualifications:

If you have studied a non UK qualification, you can see how your qualifications compare to the standard entry criteria, by selecting the country that you received the qualification in, from our country pages. Visit www.northumbria.ac.uk/yourcountry

English language requirements:

International applicants are required to have a minimum overall IELTS (Academic) score of 6.5 with 5.5 in each component (or approved equivalent*).

 *The university accepts a large number of UK and International Qualifications in place of IELTS.  You can find details of acceptable tests and the required grades you will need in our English Language section. Visit www.northumbria.ac.uk/englishqualifications

Fees and Funding 2026/27 Entry

Full UK Fee: £9,950

Full International Fee: £9,950



Scholarships and Discounts

Discover More about Fees, Scholarships and other Funding options available for UK and International applicants.

ADDITIONAL COSTS

As the degree programme centres on reading and analysing literary and critical articles, students are expected to purchase or print copies of primary materials (novels, collections of poetry, plays, etc.) for their own personal use to allow for annotation and close engagement. The combined cost of purchasing and/or printing primary texts is approximately £100 per year, though this figure depends on editions purchased and can be reduced significantly by using the library, accessing e-books, buying secondhand, and locating articles electronically where possible and appropriate.

If you’d like to receive the latest updates from Northumbria about our courses, events, finance & funding then enter your details below.

* At Northumbria we are strongly committed to protecting the privacy of personal data. To view the University’s Privacy Notice please click here

Modules Overview 2025/26

Modules

Module information is indicative and is reviewed annually therefore may be subject to change. Applicants will be informed if there are any changes.

Year one Year two

Year one

EL7021 -

Critical Contexts (Core,30 Credits)

In this module you will learn about some of the key ideas and theories that can help us understand theoretical and conceptual approaches to literary texts. From week to week, readings of primary texts past and present will be informed by selected critical and theoretical work focussed on specific aspects of the material, such as ideological and discursive constructions of gender, race, class, and national identity. This theoretical material will be provided in a Reading Pack of excerpted material, offering a representative sample of a range of thinkers’ work, and motivating further exploration of their ideas. Seminars will allow in-depth discussion of the texts and concepts appropriate to Masters level study.

The module aims to problematise our assumptions about how literary texts are constructed in relation to ideological and discursive practices, and about the relationships between texts, theory and contexts. It enables you to acquire skills necessary to analyse literature at the Masters level, using sophisticated, appropriate, and up-to-date critical and theoretical approaches

More information

EL7055 -

Literature and Social Justice (Optional,30 Credits)

Can writing – or reading – change the world? This module will help you develop advanced skills in interpreting, evaluating and communicating how texts from within and beyond the Western tradition can register (and problematise) commitments to changing their political and social contexts. As you progress through the module you will attend to the ways a diverse range of texts promote, celebrate, or inhibit and ‘contain’ the drive for social justice, and how ‘political’ works employ writerly techniques to effect social change. In turn, you will explore ways to make cultural production and reception impactful and effective in the world beyond academia. This will involve developing a model of social justice through reading across and within literary forms, genres and socio-cultural contexts, and developing your abilities to share your knowledge about the literatures of social justice in non-academic settings.

More information

Year two

EL7019 -

Research Methods: Traditional and Digital (Core,30 Credits)

On this module you will learn key approaches to English literary research – how to plan and carry out rigorous research using a variety of traditional and more modern tools and approaches. The module’s content will help prepare you for the challenge of completing a successful dissertation by empowering your knowledge of and proficiency with literary research tools.

More information

EL7022 -

MA English Literature Dissertation (Core,60 Credits)

This module consists of a 15,000 word dissertation leading to the award of MA in English Literature
The dissertation provides the students with the opportunity to produce an extended piece of research on a topic of their own choosing related to English literature. Students will operate at a higher level of independent learning and research than in the taught modules, albeit with the support of a supervisor who has specialist knowledge in the student’s chosen area of interest. The Dissertation is the final part of the MA, and is the culmination of the programme in terms of length, the degree of specialization in subject, complexity of argument and depth of research.
Work on the dissertation is supported and enhanced by assessments on the other MA modules, particularly the Research Methods module.

During the supervisory sessions students will be encouraged to:

• Tackle problems
• Outline plans
• Submit timely drafts
• Balance research and writing
• Think critically about the specific problems raised by research
• Apply appropriate methodological and theoretical approaches to underpin students’ their research
• Demonstrate acuity in selecting approaches, methods, concepts and theories.

More information

EL7053 -

The World in Print (Optional,30 Credits)

This module looks in depth at the ways in which literary authors contributed to the transformation in understanding of the place of humanity in the world. Technological, legal and commercial developments meant that print was more prolific in the eighteenth century than ever before. This gave authors new opportunities to explore, construct and query Empire, class, gender, and the natural world. Composed of two interconnected themes, each of which is key to the eighteenth-century world in print, and which represent the research strengths of the department, this module offers an advanced insight into the ways in which the world was mediated by print in the eighteenth century. Through analysing and juxtaposing important representative texts and associated recent critical and theoretical literature, you will consolidate and expand your knowledge of the period’s literature and develop a sophisticated understanding of the current state of the field.

The module will be comprised of two of the following four themes, depending upon staff availability. The indicative reading list for each unit is as follows, and each text has been (or if replaced, will be) carefully chosen to cover more than one theme:

1. New Worlds
Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters (written 1716-18, published 1763)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Charlotte Lennox, The Life of Harriot Stuart, Written by Herself (1750)
Phillis Wheatley and Hannah More, selected poems

2. The Natural World
Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770)
Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (1789)
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1816)
John Clare, Selected Poems (1820–41)

3. The Beau Monde
Eliza Haywood, The City Jilt; or, The Alderman Turn'd Beau (1726)
Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals (1775)
Frances Burney, Evelina (1778)

4. Women in the World
Laetitia Pilkington, extracts from Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington (1748)
Sarah Scott, Millennium Hall (1762)
Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798)
Anon., The Woman of Colour, A Tale (1808)

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that you are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk.

Indicative list of print history works for assignment one:
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979)
Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (2003)
Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)
David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830 (2003)
The Multigraph Collective, Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation (2017)

More information

Modules Overview 2026/27

Modules

Module information is indicative and is reviewed annually therefore may be subject to change. Applicants will be informed if there are any changes.

Year one Year two

Year one

EL7021 -

Critical Contexts (Core,30 Credits)

In this module you will learn about some of the key ideas and theories that can help us understand theoretical and conceptual approaches to literary texts. From week to week, readings of primary texts past and present will be informed by selected critical and theoretical work focussed on specific aspects of the material, such as ideological and discursive constructions of gender, race, class, and national identity. This theoretical material will be provided in a Reading Pack of excerpted material, offering a representative sample of a range of thinkers’ work, and motivating further exploration of their ideas. Seminars will allow in-depth discussion of the texts and concepts appropriate to Masters level study.

The module aims to problematise our assumptions about how literary texts are constructed in relation to ideological and discursive practices, and about the relationships between texts, theory and contexts. It enables you to acquire skills necessary to analyse literature at the Masters level, using sophisticated, appropriate, and up-to-date critical and theoretical approaches

More information

EL7055 -

Literature and Social Justice (Optional,30 Credits)

Can writing – or reading – change the world? This module will help you develop advanced skills in interpreting, evaluating and communicating how texts from within and beyond the Western tradition can register (and problematise) commitments to changing their political and social contexts. As you progress through the module you will attend to the ways a diverse range of texts promote, celebrate, or inhibit and ‘contain’ the drive for social justice, and how ‘political’ works employ writerly techniques to effect social change. In turn, you will explore ways to make cultural production and reception impactful and effective in the world beyond academia. This will involve developing a model of social justice through reading across and within literary forms, genres and socio-cultural contexts, and developing your abilities to share your knowledge about the literatures of social justice in non-academic settings.

More information

Year two

EL7019 -

Research Methods: Traditional and Digital (Core,30 Credits)

On this module you will learn key approaches to English literary research – how to plan and carry out rigorous research using a variety of traditional and more modern tools and approaches. The module’s content will help prepare you for the challenge of completing a successful dissertation by empowering your knowledge of and proficiency with literary research tools.

More information

EL7022 -

MA English Literature Dissertation (Core,60 Credits)

This module consists of a 15,000 word dissertation leading to the award of MA in English Literature
The dissertation provides the students with the opportunity to produce an extended piece of research on a topic of their own choosing related to English literature. Students will operate at a higher level of independent learning and research than in the taught modules, albeit with the support of a supervisor who has specialist knowledge in the student’s chosen area of interest. The Dissertation is the final part of the MA, and is the culmination of the programme in terms of length, the degree of specialization in subject, complexity of argument and depth of research.
Work on the dissertation is supported and enhanced by assessments on the other MA modules, particularly the Research Methods module.

During the supervisory sessions students will be encouraged to:

• Tackle problems
• Outline plans
• Submit timely drafts
• Balance research and writing
• Think critically about the specific problems raised by research
• Apply appropriate methodological and theoretical approaches to underpin students’ their research
• Demonstrate acuity in selecting approaches, methods, concepts and theories.

More information

EL7053 -

The World in Print (Optional,30 Credits)

This module looks in depth at the ways in which literary authors contributed to the transformation in understanding of the place of humanity in the world. Technological, legal and commercial developments meant that print was more prolific in the eighteenth century than ever before. This gave authors new opportunities to explore, construct and query Empire, class, gender, and the natural world. Composed of two interconnected themes, each of which is key to the eighteenth-century world in print, and which represent the research strengths of the department, this module offers an advanced insight into the ways in which the world was mediated by print in the eighteenth century. Through analysing and juxtaposing important representative texts and associated recent critical and theoretical literature, you will consolidate and expand your knowledge of the period’s literature and develop a sophisticated understanding of the current state of the field.

The module will be comprised of two of the following four themes, depending upon staff availability. The indicative reading list for each unit is as follows, and each text has been (or if replaced, will be) carefully chosen to cover more than one theme:

1. New Worlds
Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters (written 1716-18, published 1763)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Charlotte Lennox, The Life of Harriot Stuart, Written by Herself (1750)
Phillis Wheatley and Hannah More, selected poems

2. The Natural World
Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770)
Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (1789)
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1816)
John Clare, Selected Poems (1820–41)

3. The Beau Monde
Eliza Haywood, The City Jilt; or, The Alderman Turn'd Beau (1726)
Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals (1775)
Frances Burney, Evelina (1778)

4. Women in the World
Laetitia Pilkington, extracts from Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington (1748)
Sarah Scott, Millennium Hall (1762)
Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798)
Anon., The Woman of Colour, A Tale (1808)

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that you are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk.

Indicative list of print history works for assignment one:
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979)
Margaret J.M. Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (2003)
Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998)
David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830 (2003)
The Multigraph Collective, Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation (2017)

More information

Study Options

The following alternative study options are available for this course:

Any Questions?

Our Applicant Services team will be happy to help.  They can be contacted on 0191 406 0901 or by using our Contact Form.

 

All information is accurate at the time of sharing. 

Full time Courses are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but could include elements of online learning. Most courses run as planned and as promoted on our website and via our marketing materials, but if there are any substantial changes (as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority) to a course or there is the potential that course may be withdrawn, we will notify all affected applicants as soon as possible with advice and guidance regarding their options. It is also important to be aware that optional modules listed on course pages may be subject to change depending on uptake numbers each year.  

Contact time is subject to increase or decrease in line with possible restrictions imposed by the government or the University in the interest of maintaining the health and safety and wellbeing of students, staff, and visitors if this is deemed necessary in future.

 

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Northumbria University is committed to developing an inclusive, diverse and accessible campus and wider University community and are determined to ensure that opportunities we provide are open to all.

We are proud to work in partnership with AccessAble to provide Detailed Access Guides to our buildings and facilities across our City, Coach Lane and London Campuses. A Detailed Access Guide lets you know what access will be like when you visit somewhere. It looks at the route you will use getting in and what is available inside. All guides have Accessibility Symbols that give you a quick overview of what is available, and photographs to show you what to expect. The guides are produced by trained surveyors who visit our campuses annually to ensure you have trusted and accurate information.

You can use Northumbria’s AccessAble Guides anytime to check the accessibility of a building or facility and to plan your routes and journeys. Search by location, building or accessibility feature to find the information you need. 

We are dedicated to helping students who may require additional support during their student journey and offer 1-1 advice and guidance appropriate to individual requirements. If you feel you may need additional support you can find out more about what we offer here where you can also contact us with any questions you may have:

Accessibility support

Student Inclusion support

If you’d like to receive the latest updates from Northumbria about our courses, events, finance & funding then enter your details below.

* At Northumbria we are strongly committed to protecting the privacy of personal data. To view the University’s Privacy Notice please click here

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