English University of Toronto

Overview

About this Degree

 In addition, you will be trained in methods of critical reading and writing which will help you to comprehend complex texts and the authors and societies that produced them. The skills acquired by students of English are directly applicable to any career that requires critical thinking and effective communication--from education to government, law to engineering, business to medicine, and beyond. Just as valuably, the study of English will provide you with models and tools for discovering and articulating your own perspective on the many different kinds of written texts that make up our world.

The Department of English at the University of Toronto offers courses in British, Canadian, and American literature; Indigenous literatures of North America; postcolonial, transnational, and diasporic English literatures of Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia; and in the critical and theoretical literature through which literary critics and philosophers have developed vocabulary and methods for describing the forms, histories, and ideologies of literary art.

English courses are arranged in four levels. Courses at the 100-level introduce students, in large lectures, to the study of English literature through sweeping surveys: of the literary tradition from Homer through the 19th century; of literature written in direct response to the events of recent decades; or of narrative forms in many genres and historical periods. Most 100-level courses include small-group tutorials, where students are introduced to critical reading and writing skills; essays at the 100-level typically do not require research or secondary sources.