During your first year (or your second year, if you are taking Classics and English with Beginners’ Latin or Greek), you continue to study the language and literature of your chosen classical language or languages. The texts that you study include selections from the following:
either Homer, Iliad or Virgil, Aeneid
Greek and/or Latin texts from among those set for the Greek and Latin Literature papers in Classics Mods
The period of English Literature studied in the first year of the course concentrates on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the influence of the classical world was especially strong.
For the Preliminary Examination, you submit a portfolio of work and sit four written exams:
- Introduction to English Language and Literature – a portfolio of work, comprising a commentary and a discursive essay, on topics chosen from lists published by the English Faculty
- Literature in English 1550-1660 (excluding the plays of Shakespeare)
- Unseen translation from Greek and/or Latin
- Greek and/or Latin Literature: essay questions
- Greek and/or Latin Literature: translation and comment
Detailed descriptions of the papers on offer, and information about teaching provision, can be found in the course handbooks available on our website here. However, please note that handbooks are updated each year, and that the handbooks for the years in which you would sit the qualifying examination, Prelims, and Finals may not be available yet. In particular, the syllabus for Prelims is changing from 2025 entry onwards.
Please note that changes may be made to course syllabuses from year to year, and that not all papers may be available in any given year.
