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The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T +44 (0)1227 764000
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Comparative Literature at Kent
Comparative Literature at Kent was ranked 1st in the UK for overall student satisfaction in the 2011 National Student Survey.
The Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Kent offers courses that cover literature from the classics to the modern age, crossing the traditional boundaries of national literature programmes. Alongside notable works originally written in the English and American traditions, our students have the opportunity to study (in English translation) a wide range of major literary works from other countries. Novelists such as Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Kafka; dramatists such as Sophocles, William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett; poets such as Dante, J. W. von Goethe, Charles Baudelaire, and Sylvia Plath: these are just some of the major writers whose works are included on our courses.
Undergraduate Studies
At undergraduate level we focus on what the great German poet and dramatist Goethe called 'World Literature'. We investigate how different literary forms have evolved in different cultures and linguistic traditions, and why they have developed as they have. For example: what makes a tragedy from ancient Greece so different from one written in seventeenth-century France? How does an English historical novel differ from a Russian one? How has the genre of science fiction developed in Europe? Why has the tale survived as a literary form from ancient times to the present day? Our undergraduate modules are designed to give students the opportunity to engage with literature from a wide range of cultures and historical periods. For further information, please see our Undergraduate Studies Prospectus.
Postgraduate Studies
At postgraduate level we offer a taught MA in Comparative Literature and a taught MA in Modern European Literature. These include modules on topics such as autobiography, the fantastic, literary theory, myth in modern and postmodern literature, the European avant-garde, and psychoanalysis and literature. Students may choose to study for these MAs either with both the Autumn and the Spring Terms in Canterbury or with the Spring Term in Paris. For more on the Paris option, see Paris MA Option. At research level (MA, MPhil, and PhD) our staff can offer supervision to students working in a range of fields, including modernism and postmodernism, literary theory, and postcolonial writing.
News and Events
University of Kent at Paris
The University of Kent at Paris is an increasingly popular destination for postgraduate students from around the world. Read more...
Centre for Modern European Literature Lectures and Research Seminars
For information on forthcoming events organized by the Centre for Modern European Literature, see Centre Lectures and Seminars.
For information on funding for postgraduates studying Comparative Literature at Kent, see Funding.