Philosophy and Literature

Philosophy and literature is a pairing that acknowledges a relationship between the two disciplines that has always been intimate and generative. Great works of literature are not simply entertaining: they are explorations of ideas about human nature, morality, meaning, time, identity, and society that have preoccupied philosophers throughout history. And philosophical argument, at its most compelling, is itself a kind of writing, shaped by questions of form, rhetoric, and audience in ways that literary study helps to illuminate.

Reading philosophy and literature together enriches the understanding of each.

At Essex this three-year full-time programme provides a wide-ranging and flexible curriculum that embraces different traditions of philosophical thought alongside English literature across several genres and periods. You will explore the interrelations between the two disciplines, examining how philosophical concerns about knowledge, ethics, language, and existence are taken up and transformed in literary works, and how literary and narrative form itself raises philosophical questions that more formal argumentation alone cannot address. The programme develops your ability to read closely and carefully, to construct and evaluate arguments, and to write with clarity and precision about complex ideas, skills that are valuable far beyond the academy.

Graduates of philosophy and literature programmes find careers in publishing, journalism, education, writing, the arts, law, the civil service, policy, and consultancy. The combination of analytical rigour from philosophy and the sensitivity to language and narrative from literary study produces graduates who can think carefully and write well about difficult questions, which is valued across many professional contexts. Many graduates also continue to postgraduate study in philosophy, English literature, creative writing, or interdisciplinary humanities fields, or pursue professional training in law, journalism, or teaching.