Studying the MLitt in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Culture
The MLitt in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Culture allows students to devote a year to the study of one of the most exciting and formative periods in European history, centred on the key writer in the English literary tradition, William Shakespeare.
The structure of the Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Culture MLitt combines core modules and student-directed elements, permitting students to pursue their own scholarly interests within an overall framework.
What you'll study
The core modules of the MLitt are:
- Learned Culture: Rhetoric, Politics and Identity: explores the influence of Renaissance humanism and the implications of its distinctive interest in rhetoric for 16th- and 17th-century culture.
- Renaissance Popular Culture: complements the focus of Learned Culture: Rhetoric, Politics and Identity on elite contexts and looks at the popular culture of the period: popular festivity, clowning, jestbooks, ballads, romances and grotesquerie.
- Shakespeare and Textual Culture: considers the material contexts of Renaissance literary production, covering topics such as manuscript, print, speech, the editing of Renaissance texts, and a strand of palaeography training.
- The Worlds of Renaissance Literature: investigates the relationship between Renaissance English literature and the wider world, both in terms of the influence of continental vernaculars on English writing and the transformations produced by global travel and nascent imperial expansion.
Dissertation
The MLitt concludes with the writing of a 15,000-word dissertation. Students identify a topic for their dissertation out of their own research interests in consultation with a member of staff. The dissertation is researched and written following the completion of the core modules of the MLitt and is typically submitted in August.
Contact
School of English
University of St Andrews
Castle House
The Scores
St Andrews
KY16 9AL
Phone: +44 (0)1334 46 2668
Email: pgeng@st-andrews.ac.uk
Academic staff
The staff teaching on the programme will vary in any one year, but will always include some of the following:
Recent publications by staff teaching this course
Recent publications:
- Harriet Archer, Unperfect Histories: The Mirror for Magistrates, 1559-1610 (2017)
- Matthew C. Augustine, Andrew Marvell: A Literary Life (2021)
- Margaret Connolly, Sixteenth Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books: Continuities of Reading in the English Reformation (2019)
- Alex Davis, Imagining Inheritance from Chaucer to Shakespeare (2020)
- Jane Pettegree, Foreign and Native on the English Stage, 1588-1611: Metaphor and National Identity (2011)
- Giulio Pertile Feeling Faint: Affect and Consciousness in the Renaissance (2019)
Why St Andrews?
You will be part of a welcoming and lively academic community. St Andrews is a consortium member of the Folger Shakespeare Library Institute in Washington DC.
It also plays host to a number of research groups relevant to students with interests in the English Renaissance:
St Andrews was one of the first universities in the world to teach English literature. Today, the School of English is ranked first in the UK in the Guardian University Guide 2024 and we enjoy an international reputation for excellence as a centre for academic research and literary creativity.
Our Masters programmes span the history of English literature from the Medieval period to the present, explore works from diverse literary cultures drawn from across the world, and cultivate the next generation of creative writers, poets and playwrights.
You will be part of a vibrant scholarly community of more than 120 postgraduate students from around the globe and over 30 permanent members of staff with expertise in a range of specialisms. By joining one or more of our Research Groups you will have the opportunity to work with the School’s outstanding academic researchers, visiting speakers, and fellow postgraduates in research seminars, lectures and workshops.
Our Creative Writing and Playwriting and Screenwriting classes are taught by award-winning novelists, poets and playwrights with strong links to the University-managed Byre Theatre and the StAnza Poetry Festival.
As a postgraduate scholar at St Andrews, you will have access to rare books and manuscripts in the Library’s Special Collections, an archive built up since the 15th century.
Student testimonials
“I have grown so much at St Andrews, both intellectually and personally. This programme has introduced me to professors that have challenged me to become an even better scholar and lifelong friends who have encouraged me every step of the way. In this community of professors and peers, I have felt completely safe to take risks that I never would have dared to try before and which have only helped me learn even more. I’ve become a better scholar and a better person, and I look forward to taking the skills I’ve developed in this programme into my future career.”
- Alexa (2020)
"I absolutely loved studying at St Andrews. The MLitt in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literary Culture gave me a wide-ranging knowledge of early modern literature while providing me with the flexibility to delve into my own research interests. The School of English community was as welcoming as intellectually stimulating, with professors who were not only experts in their fields but also dedicated teachers. I graduated feeling prepared and excited to continue on to a PhD."
- Sarah (2014)
"Being part of a small group on my MLitt course provided both invaluable support and intellectual stimulation; an excellent context for learning."
- Naomi (2014)
"Studying the Renaissance MLitt at St Andrews has been an incredibly rewarding year. The quality of teaching is amazing and the breadth and depth of texts studied means that I left the course with a far greater knowledge and appreciation of the literature and culture of the period. Moreover, the School’s encouragement of super-curricular activities, such as conferences, also gives an invaluable insight into the world of academia and further postgraduate research."
- Peter (2014)