What do you think of when somebody tells you they do an English Literature degree?
Obviously you can’t reply, so I’ll tell you what I think of. I think of rainy afternoons spent underneath the soft glow of green library lamps. Piles of ancient, clothbound books, dog-eared from years of fingers and thumbs. Half-empty mugs of herbal tea left on cafe tables following hours-long revision sessions.
Of course, my own experience of an English Literature degree differs hugely from the romanticised version that I’ve dreamt up here. My version consists of sitting on my bed with a can of Coke and some Pringles, bashing out an essay that I had three months to complete with less than 12 hours to go. Or doing my reading on my phone, on the bus, on the way to Dusk. Or, in some cases, sacking it off entirely to go to the cinema.
However, what may also come to mind when someone tells you they do an English Literature degree is the number of recent assassination attempts against said degree.
It started in 2022 with Sheffield Hallam University, who scrapped its English Literature degree and replaced it with an English Studies degree. The ‘improved’ course encompasses both English Literature and English Language, as well as Creative Writing.
This decision was met with considerable backlash. One critic called it “cultural vandalism”. SHU lecturer Dr Mary Preece commented that the slash was “largely economic”, and that it is “vital for young people to be able to manipulate language”. Even renowned author Philip Pullman chimed in, stating that “the study of literature should not be a luxury for a wealthy minority of spoilt and privileged aesthetes, but a spring of precious truth and life that every one of us is entitled to.”
And it didn’t end there. In November 2024, Canterbury Christ Church University followed suit, axing its literature degrees. A university spokesperson justified the decision by claiming that the course had seen a significant decline in recent years, and it was “no longer viable in the current climate”.
It’s clear that the main source of motivation behind these cuts is financial. The other concerns job prospects. It would appear that English Literature students are at a disadvantage when it comes to the job market.
It is an unfortunate running joke, at least on my course, that we will all be unemployed after university (I think we’re just in front of Philosophy students).
However – and please correct me if I’m wrong – I find that English Literature actually has the ability to offer up a wealth of job opportunities. Granted, there is no hyper specific path, as there is with degrees such as engineering and medicine. But you could go into publishing. Journalism. Copywriting. Teaching. Lecturing. Museum curation. Archiving. Public Relations. Marketing. The list goes on.
I am also aware of a number of English Literature students wanting to get into law, and their degree seems to me a great way of doing that. Obviously a conversion course is necessary, but the critical, analytical and communicative skills that an English degree equips you with will likely prove very helpful in the legal world.
Another argument that people like to bring up against English Literature is its perceived lack of value as a degree. How worthless it is to read books! To analyse their words! To offer critical insight into the economic, political and cultural state of the societies in which they were written!
I often wonder why History doesn’t seem to suffer the same negative representation as English. Maybe because it deals more in facts than opinions. Yet surely this is the entire point of university? To learn how to express our unique ideas, our thoughts, our opinions, in an academic way? This is exactly what English Literature does.
Do I believe that ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees exist? Yes. I’m not going to list them here because I don’t want to offend anybody, nor do I think that my opinion on the matter is in any way important – the point is that everybody should have the right to study whatever they’re interested in. Either way, I think that English Literature remains relevant.
If you were to compile a list of the UK’s most widely celebrated writers, actors, journalists and academics, you would find that a great number of them studied English Literature at university. John Betjeman. Jeanette Winterson. Emma Watson. Hugh Grant. Jeremy Paxman. Stephen Fry. Two of the Monty Python ensemble (the best ones, too). Taking all of this into account, I find it very unlikely that English Literature will be eliminated from the curriculum entirely. It will never die. It’s a book in a bulletproof vest.
There is a wonderful, charming quote from Starter for Ten, my favourite David Nicholls novel (sorry One Day) that sums up how I feel. Brian Jackson, an English Literature student, defends his degree choice to a friend.
“The thing about literature is, well, basically it encapsulates all the disciplines – it’s history, philosophy, politics, sexual politics, sociology, psychology, linguistics, science. Literature is mankind’s organised response to the world around him, or her, so in a way it’s only natural that this response should contain a whole [...] panoply of intellectual concepts, ideas…’ Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”
Although communicated somewhat comically, Brian is right. Literature does, indeed, encapsulate every academic discipline. Instead of reading an essay about the dangers of totalitarianism, you can read 1984. Instead of forcing your way through an article on the diminishing relevance of the medieval chivalric genre, you can read Don Quixote.
The wonderful thing about English is that, in most cases, you have to work to uncover the truth of a text. It’s a rewarding feeling. You can’t eliminate that.
