BA English Literature and History
About this course
BA in English Language and Literature and History, combining literary studies with historical analysis. Core topics include Research Methods. The programme spans literature in relation to film, art, history, technology, and language, while history modules cover periods from the ancient world to the twentieth century, including medieval, Renaissance, and modern studies. Modules also include film and visual culture and the history of books from parchment to digital.
Written by AI from the university's course page and module list. It can get details wrong, so check the official course page before you rely on it.
Entry requirements
A level: AAB (Creative Writing, English Language and Literature, or English Literature)
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What students say
Based on about 128 final-year students who answered, across similar courses at this university
- Teaching on my course: 89%
- Learning opportunities: 82%
- Assessment and feedback: 84%
- Academic support: 93%
- Organisation and management: 76%
- Learning resources: 91%
- Student voice: 84%
Do students stay on the course?
Based on about 325 students who started, across similar courses at this university
- Continued on course: 91%
- Left higher education: 6%
- Moved to a lower qualification: 3%
What graduates do next
Based on about 117 graduates who answered, across similar courses at this university
- Working: 58%
- Working and studying: 12%
- Further study: 14%
- Unemployed: 7%
Most common jobs
- Business and public service associate professionals: 17%
- Teaching Professionals: 13%
- Administrative occupations: 11%
- Media Professionals: 10%
- Sales occupations: 8%
- Find their work meaningful: 67%
- Feel on track for their future plans: 50%
- Use what they learnt on the course: 30%
Where graduates work (5 years on)
Based on about 260 graduates, across similar courses at this university
- North East: 1%
- North West: 4%
- Yorkshire and the Humber: 1%
- West Midlands: 8%
- East of England: 5%
- London: 19%
- South East: 10%
- South West: 16%
- Wales: 37%
- Northern Ireland: 1%
Who gets in
Based on about 275 students who started, across similar courses at this university
- A levels: 96%
- Access course: 1%
- No formal qualifications: 1%
Modules
- History in Practice Part 1: Questions, Frameworks and Audiences.
- Global Histories
- Reading Up Close
- Ways of Reading: Literature, Culture, Theory
- Writing at University and Beyond
- The Making of The Modern World, 1750-1970
- Inventing a Nation: Politics, Culture and Heritage
- Medieval Worlds, AD 500 -1500
- Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution
- Empires East and West, 323 BCE to 680 CE
- Reading History
- Shakespeare's Worlds
- Twentieth-century Literature: Conflict, Crisis, Experimentation
- Victorian Worlds: Forms of Transformation
- Contemporary Literature and Culture: States of Emergency
- Eighteenth-century and Romantic Poetry and Prose
- Britain and Beyond: Literatures of the Medieval World
- Seen and Unseen: Tracing the (In)visible in Film and Visual Culture
- Feminisms
- Literature, Science and Environment
- Uncanny Encounters: Gothic and Culture from the 1760s to the Present
- Race, Empire, Nation
- A History of Books from Parchment to Pixel
- Past, Present and Future
- Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World
- Making History: Historians, Evidence, Audiences
- Debating History
- Everyday Life in Medieval Britain c1200–1600
- A History of the Supernatural
- Accessible Pasts
- The British Civil Wars
- European Enlightenment(s): The View from the Margins
- America: From Revolution to Reconstruction
- Modern France
- Europe's Dark Century
- Stalinism: State, Society, and Environment
- Close Neighbours, Dangerous Foes: China, Japan and Modern East Asia
- Politics and People in Modern Britain: Protest, citizenship and the state
- Environmental Histories
- Chwyldro, Diwylliant a Radicaliaeth, 1789–1914
- Heroes and Villains in the Middle Ages
- Myth, Narrative, and Identity: Storytelling and Society
- Literature for All
- Histories of Asia: Ancient to Early Medieval
- War, Violence and Imperialism in the Ancient World
- Bodies and the Embodied Experience in the Ancient World
- Researching History: Dissertation
- Age of Arthur: Myths, History and Identity in Medieval Britain
- Crusading Worlds
- Spies and Espionage in the Medieval World
- Witchcraft and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1750
- Health and Illness in Early Modern Britain
- Mobile Lives: Travel, Exile, and Migration in the Early Modern World
- Native American History
- Utopias of Extremism: Revolutions in Comparative Context
- Czechoslovakia: The Twentieth Century in Miniature
- Inside the Third Reich
- Violence and Ideology in the Inter-War Soviet Union
- Change, Conflict, and Mass Mobilisation in Republican China, 1911-1945
- Peripheral Reverberations of the French Revolution
- Mayhem and murder: Investigating the Victorian Underworld
- The Making of British Socialism
- Public and Private: Gender, Identities and Power in Twentieth Century Britain
- Jews, Europe and the World
- Cold War Cultures: Power, Conformity, and Dissent c. 1948–1990
- Literature and Science
- Dissertation
- Gender and Monstrosity: Late/Neo Victorian
- Utopia: Suffrage to Cyberpunk
- Postcolonial Theory
- Military Masculinities in the Long Nineteenth Century
- Island Stories: Literatures of the North Atlantic
- American Poetry after Modernism
- John Milton
- Apocalypse Then and Now
- Activist Poetry: Protest, Dissent, Resistance
- Visions of the Future: Climate Change & Fiction
- Romantic Circles: Collaboration, Radicalism and Creativity 1770-1830
- Shakespeare's Fractured Britain
- Visions of Past and Future in Children’s Books
- The Medieval Supernatural: Death, Demons and Ghosts
- Literature and Psychology: To Freud and Beyond
- 'And the Winner is...' The Role of Literary Prizes
- Cinema Across Asia
- Sound Encounters in the Medieval World
- Whodunnit? British Crime Fiction: Text, Screen and Sound
Questions about this course
How much do graduates of BA English Literature and History at Cardiff University earn?
The median salary is £26,000 after 15 months, £23,500 after 3 years, £29,500 after 5 years. After five years the middle half of graduates earn between £24,000 and £36,000. The £29,500 median after five years is £1,500 more than the UK median for Literature in English.
What do graduates of BA English Literature and History at Cardiff University do next?
84% were in work or further study 15 months after finishing (Graduate Outcomes 2023-24).
Are students happy with the teaching on BA English Literature and History at Cardiff University?
89% of final-year students were positive about the teaching in the National Student Survey 2025-26.
What grades do I need for BA English Literature and History at Cardiff University?
The typical offer is AAB at A level. The average entrant had 132 UCAS points.
How many students continue on BA English Literature and History at Cardiff University?
91% of students continued into their second year, and 6% left higher education.