Congratulations on your offer to study a master's degree in the Department of English! 

We've curated this hub to support your next steps.

Although this content was up-to-date at the time it was produced, some changes to courses and teaching staff may occur. Please make sure you check our website course pages or contact us directly for the very latest information.

Please read through our frequently asked questions to help prepare you for making your decision on where to study.

Once you have read through all the conditions of your offer and are ready to start your King's journey, please accept your offer via the King's Apply Portal.

If you are looking for more information about modules, assessments and timetables for your course, please visit the course page:

• Contemporary Literature, Culture & Theory MA
• Early Modern English Literature: Books That Matter MA
• Medieval Studies MA
• Modern Literature & Culture MA
• Shakespeare Studies MA
• Theatre, Performance & Critical Culture MA

Immerse yourself in your course with this list of suggested summer readings:

• Theatre, Performance & Critical Culture MA reading list
• Contemporary Literature, Culture & Theory MA reading list
• Early Modern English Literature: Books that matter MA reading list

Check out the blogs below to learn more about the Department of English and life at King's.

Spotlight on Arts & Humanities

• All the world's a stage: Gaining a new understanding of Shakespeare
• 10 reasons to study our MA in Shakespeare Studies
• Professor Clare Pettitt's | Emily Brontë’s fierce, flawed women: not your usual Gothic female characters
• Dr Edward Sugden | Moby-Dick doesn’t deserve the ‘difficult’ label – this sea romance was once loved by office workers, sailors and children
• Dr Adelene Buckland | Wuthering Heights casting row: most adaptations struggle with picking the right Heathcliff and Cathy, but we deserve better in 2024
• Professor Anna Snaith |  Mrs Dalloway at 100: Virginia Woolf’s timeless novel is a work of pandemic fiction
• Dr Emily Rowe | Shakespearean References in White Lotus Season three.
• Dr Emily Rowe | Juliet and Romeo strains to be meaningful but never earns its emotional crescendos

Podcasts

Listen to Professor Lara Feigel on BBC Radio 4

• Front Row | VE Day literature
• Artworks series | DH Lawrence

Theatre, Performance & Critical Culture MA

• Why I chose to study in the MA Theatre, Performance and Critical Culture
• Theatre and Performance Studies vs. Theatre, Performance, and Critical Culture: What is different in the new MA?
• Professor Alan Read on KCL Radio's 'The Worst Day of the Week' show
• Performance Lab: A module bridging theory and practice | Feature from King's College London
• Discover Performance@King's, our cross-college performance and theatre research and teaching group

Early Modern English Literature: Books That Matter MA

Suggested pre-reading and resources

If you would like to begin preparing for the MA, we have put together a suggested reading list and set of resources to help you get a feel for the range and richness of the early modern period. There is no expectation that you will have read everything here before you arrive — it is not a test, but a starting point. You might use it to fill gaps, revisit familiar texts from new angles, or explore authors, genres and forms you have not yet encountered. Where possible, we recommend using good modern editions (such as Arden), and watching performances and adaptations, as drama is best understood in performance as well as on the page.

As you will discover on the course, early modern writing is shaped not only as literature, but by print, manuscript, performance, circulation and readership. A grounding in major authors will be useful, but so too will curiosity about the unfamiliar. Some of the most exciting work begins by asking what changes when canonical texts are read alongside less expected materials. You may also find it helpful to familiarise yourself with key classical and biblical reference points, as well as selected works of secondary criticism.

 

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