English Literature A Level - Arts & Culture
KS5 Coordinator
Mr A Croxford: ACroxford@woolwichpolyboys.co.uk
Click to download the subject information poster for English Literature A Level PDF
Click to download the English Literature Curriculum Map
reading list
Set texts
- Othello – William Shakespeare
- Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
- Frankenstein Mary Shelley
- The Handmaid’s tale
- Poems of the Decade – Various
- Selected poems of Christina Rossetti
NEA (two of):
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Tennessee Williams
- The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker
- Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
Dystopian Novels
- 1984 – George Orwell
- The Road – Cormac McCarthy
- Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
- Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
- Day of the Triffids / The Chrysalids – John Wyndham
- Children of Men – PD James
- The Power – Naomi Alderman
- A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
- The Time Machine – HG Wells
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip Dick
- Riddley Walker – Russell Hoban
- Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
Victorian Classics:
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: A classic coming-of-age story with elements of romance, gothic and social commentary.
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: A novel exploring themes of ambition, social class, and redemption, with a memorable cast of characters.
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: A passionate and dark love story set on the Yorkshire moors, known for its intense characters and atmosphere.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: A philosophical novel exploring themes of beauty, morality, and the corrupting influence of vanity.
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray: A satire of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, focusing on the lives and ambitions of several characters, particularly Becky Sharp.
- Middlemarch by George Eliot: A complex and richly detailed novel exploring the lives and relationships of various characters in a provincial town, with a focus on social and intellectual life.
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins: A suspenseful mystery novel with elements of sensation fiction, featuring intricate plot twists and memorable characters.
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell: Explores the social and economic tensions between the industrial north and the agricultural south of England.
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: A novella delving into the duality of human nature and the conflict between good and evil.
- Dracula by Bram Stoker: A gothic horror novel that introduced the iconic vampire character and explores themes of good versus evil and the unknown.
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: A tragic novel about a young woman's struggle against social constraints and moral judgment.
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë: A powerful novel exploring themes of domestic abuse and female independence.
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: Imaginative and whimsical fantasy novels that have captivated readers for generations.
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens: A complex novel exploring social issues, poverty, and injustice in Victorian England.
- Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens: A social novel critiquing institutions and societal structures, with a focus on themes of imprisonment and freedom.
- Silas Marner by George Eliot: A novel about a weaver's redemption and spiritual awakening.
- Daniel Deronda by George Eliot: Explores themes of Jewish identity and social responsibility.
- Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: A sensation novel known for its suspenseful plot and exploration of female transgression.
- Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: A controversial novel that explores themes of social class, education, and marriage.
- The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot: A novel about a woman's struggle to find fulfillment in a patriarchal society.
- Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens: A social novel exploring themes of wealth, class, and inheritance, with a complex plot and memorable characters.
Modern Prose
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus / Americanah
- Adavind Adiga: The White Tiger
- Monica Ali: Brick Lane
- Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
- Tara Westover: Educated (memoir)
- Anthony Doerr: All the Light We Cannot See
- Andrea Levy: Small Island
- Marcus Zusak: The Book Thief
- Rose Tremain: The Road Home
- Colm Toibin: Brooklyn
- Joanna Quin: The Whalebone Theatre
- Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
- Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin / Alias Grace / The Testaments
- Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber (short stories) / Nights at the Circus
- Daphne Du Maurier: Rebecca
- Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong / Charlotte Gray
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
- Graham Greene: Brighton Rock
- Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
- James Joyce: Dubliners (short stories)
- Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
- Ian McEwan: Atonement
- Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon / Beloved
- Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
- Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
- Annie Proulx: The Shipping News
- Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea (prequel to Jane Eyre)
- John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
- Jeanette Winterson: Oranges are not the only Fruit
- Zadie Smith: White Teeth
- Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
- Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory
- A.S. Byatt: Possession
- J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace
- Louis de Bernieres: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
- E.M. Forster: Howards End ,A Room with a View ,Where Angels Fear to Tread ,Maurice ,The Longest Journey, A Passage to India
- L. P. Hartley: The Go-Between
- Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms ,For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Khaled Husseini: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Kazuo Ishiguro:Remains of the Day ,Never Let Me Go
- D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers ,The Rainbow ,Women in Love
- Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall, Bringing Up the Bodies, The Mirror and the Light
- Haruki Murakami: IQ84; Norwegian Wood
- Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon ,Beloved
- Jean Rhys: Voyage in the Dark , Wide Sargasso Sea
- Donna Tartt: The Secret History
- Jeanette Winterson: Oranges are not the only fruit
- Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse , Mrs Dalloway , Orlando , Road to Wigan Pier
- Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
- Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children, Shame ,The Satanic Verses
- J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye
- John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath , East of Eden, Of Mice and Men
- Patrick Suskind: Perfume
Non-Fiction
- Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Bill Bryson: The Lost Continent / Notes from a Small Island
- Alan Bennett: Writing Home
- Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
- Jenny Diski: Skating to Antarctica
- Anna Funder: Stasiland
- Alexander Masters: Stuart: A Life Backwards
- Helen Macdonald: H is for Hawk
- Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
- Solomon Northrop: Twelve Years a Slave
- Jeannette Winterson: Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?
- Xinran: What the Chinese Don’t Eat
Poets:
- Early: Beowulf, Caedmon’s Hymn, Dream of the Rood
- Medieval Lyrics: Sir Orfeo Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman ;Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales (Wife of Bath, Merchant, Pardoner, Reeve, Miller, Knight, Nun’s Priest)
- Elizabethan: Wyatt; Spenser; Sidney; Shakespeare; Jonson
- Metaphysical: Donne; Herbert; Vaughan; Marvell
- Restoration: Milton
- Augustan: Butler; Dryden; Pope; Swift; Rochester
- C18: Gray; Cowper; Crabbe; Burns; Goldsmith
- Romantic: Blake; Clare; Wordsworth; Coleridge; Byron; Keats; Shelley
- Victorian: Tennyson; Browning; Barrett-Browning; Arnold; Rossetti; Southey; Arnold; Emily Dickinson
- Fin-de-siecle: Wilde; Swinburne; Symons;
- Early C20: Blunden; Lawrence; Graves; de la Mare
- War Poets: Brooke; Owen; Rosenberg; Sassoon
- Modernist and Modern Armitage; Auden; Betjeman; Causley; Cope; cummings; Davies; Duffy; Eliot; Fanthorpe; Fenton; Frost; Gunn; Hardy; Harrison; Heaney; Henri; Hughes; Jennings; Larkin; Lochhead; Macneice; McGough; Mitchell; Motion; Patten; Plath; Raine – Kathleen and Craig; Sitwell; Smith Spender; Thomas – RS and Dylan; Walcott; Yeats; Zephaniah; Button Poetry on-line; Evan Boland; Kae Tempest: