Explore literature through the ages.

We've hand-picked a variety of English literature courses for you to choose from. Whether you are interested in twenty-first-century literature and culture, the tales of Babylon, or historical topics such as race and gender, we have a broad selection of literature that’s sure to suit a wide variety of tastes and interests.  

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You might be a newcomer to the world of literature and the great works of authors past and present, or perhaps you consider yourself somewhat of an expert. Whichever group you fall into, our friendly classes are the perfect environment to develop your skills and knowledge. Building on a curiosity or passion is what we do best! 

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Whether you prefer online learning from the comfort of your own home, or you want to attend an in-person class in your local community, we have a huge amount of flexibility to suit how you learn best. This means that you can pick the environment that’s right for you, giving you that piece of mind that you can learn in a place that you feel comfortable with. 

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Our dedicated tutors will guide you through the different genres and time periods in English literature, helping you to develop your critical reading and analysis skills - perfect if you're a beginner.   

Our learning experience is one of the things that sets us apart, with many of our learners going on to achieve incredible things. You’ll learn at a pace that’s comfortable for you, with a friendly supportive tutor on hand to answer any questions you might have.  

Start your journey today and learn all about the works of Agatha Christie, Shakespeare and many, many more.  

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This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: Victorian Literature Through the Decades - The 1830s

During this course we will consider a number of novels that were pubished in the 1830s as the start of an exploration of literature published through the decades of Victoria’s long reign. In order to get some sense of how literature was beginning to cross borders in this decade we will look at works by English authors and also a French and an American writer. The following works will be studied: Old Man Goriot (Honoré de Balzac, 1835); The Vicar of Wrexhill (Frances Trollope, 1837); The Pickwick Papers (Charles Dickens, 1837); The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Edgar Allan Poe, 1838).
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Course Information

Dates:
Tue 10/09/2024 -
Tue 10/12/2024
Times:
2:30pm - 4:30pm
Duration:
14 sessions
Location:
Exeter Community Centre (Exeter)
17 St. Davids Hill
Exeter
EX4 3RG
Tutor:
Greta Depledge
Course code:
Q00016877
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £109.20

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

British Literature 1980 - 2011 (Part 1)

On this course we will examine the following novels: The Stranger’s Child - Alan Hollinghurst. Last Orders - Graham Swift. A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro Innocence - Penelope Fitzgerald The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps - Michel Faber. These texts will take us inside contemporary British fiction, and earmark those authors who have contributed to the evolution of a distinctive voice in British fiction in the last fifty years, from the years of Thatcher, New Labour to the present. We will explore each writers’ techniques and themes, and how they address the themes of British identity. Discussions will be lively with plenty of opportunities to voice your opinions.
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Course Information

Dates:
Thu 12/09/2024 -
Fri 22/11/2024
Times:
2:15pm - 4:15pm
Duration:
10 sessions
Location:
Friends Meeting House (Sutton)
10 Cedar Road
Sutton
SM2 5DA
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017587
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £100.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: Selected plays by Brian Friel

Plays of Brian Friel will be studied, read and workshopped. The group will discuss his stage devices and how his plays might be produced. We shall look at aspects of how he creates characters and tells epic stories on stage that resonate with current modern theatre audiences. His plays use intriguing theatrical metaphors and poetic structures to reflect on the ways in which Ireland has evolved, resisted and grown over its history. Friel’s writing produces powerful imagery on-stage that take audiences into the heart of the issues he explores. Over ten weeks, two to three plays will be discussed and workshopped to appreciate the various theatrical devices that Friel often uses.
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Course Information

Dates:
Tue 17/09/2024 -
Tue 26/11/2024
Times:
10:00am - 12:00pm
Duration:
10 sessions
Location:
The Greenleaf Centre (Walthamstow)
67-69 Greenleaf Road
Walthamstow
E17 6QP
Tutor:
Thomas Crowe
Course code:
Q00017604
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £100.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

British Literature in the 1950s

In this course we will discuss and analyse the following authors and their works. These are: Look Back in Anger - John Osborne. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark. The Vet's Daughter - Barbara Comyns. A Voice Through A Cloud - Denton Welch. A Kind of Loving - Stan Barstow. These texts are an eclectic blend of plays, novels and the autobiographical in the case of Denton Welch, an eccentric and now largely forgotten. There will be great scope for discussion and the voicing of opinions, and you will be encouraged to develop your own theories and interpretations in a supportive atmosphere.
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Course Information

Dates:
Wed 18/09/2024 -
Wed 27/11/2024
Times:
10:30am - 12:30pm
Duration:
10 sessions
Location:
Duke Street Church
Quadrant Road
Richmond
TW9 1DH
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017580
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £100.00

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Membership Information

Duration:
12 months
Fee:
WEA Membership

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: Nordic Noir

This course will examine the publishing phenomenon of Nordic Noir, locating its roots in the early twentieth century, before exploring four contemporary novels from the genre. Our texts will be Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg; Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg; The Bird Tribunal - Agnes Ravatn; The Flatey Enigma - Viktor Arnor Ingolfson and Missing - Karin Alvtegen. These texts will take us inside the mind of Nordic Noir and we will evaluate the common features of the genre and its relationship with crime-fiction, horror and recent forms of Gothic literature. There will be ample scope for lively discussion in our sessions
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Course Information

Dates:
Thu 19/09/2024 -
Thu 28/11/2024
Times:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Duration:
11 sessions
Location:
Online
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017459
How you'll learn:
Online
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £74.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: Twentieth Century Irish Poetry

Spanning the twentieth century as it does this course will witness women’s voices interacting with the history of political change, both domestically and internationally. Therefore, we will be able to trace themes such as enfranchisement and cultural emancipation in our texts. Set against a backdrop of political and cultural change, our texts will discuss women’s rights, gender and sexuality, and the woman’s right to imaginative emancipation also. Interacting with the political and socio-cultural aspect of the course, we will also discuss how our writers are affected by and interact with literary/political movements such as feminism, nationalism, modernism and postmodernism, all of which have allowed women’s distinctive voices to emerge. To support consideration of these issues, we will allude to aspects of the general culture in Britain during the century such as class and consumerism, and our stories will form a commentary on the shifting perception of women of themselves. Along with these aspects of the course, we will also observe how women’s voice have helped to reshape the technical and structural possibilities of the short story form, as the short story form has experimented with new modes of relating narrative.
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Course Information

Dates:
Fri 20/09/2024 -
Fri 29/11/2024
Times:
2:00pm - 4:00pm
Duration:
11 sessions
Location:
Online
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017458
How you'll learn:
Online
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £74.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: 20th Century British Women's Short Stories

This course will range from the beginning of the twentieth century until its end, and explore the wealth of short stories written during this period by women. We will encounter the usual suspects such as Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen and Doris Lessing, but the course will also assess the stories of less well-known writers, many of whom are worthy of much deeper study. These writers will emerge from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As all our texts are by women, we will discover the importance of these voices, often disappeared in a patriarchal society, and recognise how vital these women’s voices were and are.
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Course Information

Dates:
Fri 20/09/2024 -
Fri 29/11/2024
Times:
10:00am - 12:00pm
Duration:
11 sessions
Location:
Online
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017460
How you'll learn:
Online
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £74.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: A Feast of Fiction (Part 1)

Each week we focus on a classic work of fiction, reading and discussing key passages. The texts include short novels which can be read in one week, and longer novels which we’ll study over two weeks. The course is organised chronologically and spans over130 years, from the late 19th century to modern times. We begin with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey and end with Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. We’ll share and debate interpretations, sharpen our critical and appreciative faculties, understand what fiction can tell us about the society and culture that produced it, and, hopefully, be inspired to read other works by the writers featured on the course.
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Course Information

Dates:
Tue 24/09/2024 -
Tue 03/12/2024
Times:
3:30pm - 5:30pm
Duration:
10 sessions
Location:
Redbridge Institute of Adult Education (
Gaysham Avenue
Gants Hill
Ilford
IG2 6TD
Tutor:
Brandon Robshaw
Course code:
Q00017552
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £100.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

British Novels in the 70s and 80s (Part 1)

This course will consider and analyse the following authors and their texts. These are: Magnus - George Mackay Brown. Border Country - Raymond Williams. They - Kay Dick. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre. Waterland - Graham Swift. These texts will provide a window into the different regions of Britain during two decades of major change in the social fabric and political nature of Britain, though several of our texts will trace these changes back to the earlier part of the twentieth century, and in doing so, we will encounter themes of identity, class and the decline of Empire. There will be much to prompt discussion and challenge our assumptions.
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Course Information

Dates:
Wed 25/09/2024 -
Wed 04/12/2024
Times:
2:15pm - 4:15pm
Duration:
10 sessions
Location:
Rose House (London)
70 Barnes High Street
London
SW13 9LD
Tutor:
Stephen Smith
Course code:
Q00017363
How you'll learn:
In venue
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £100.00

This course is available for WEA members only until 10 am on Wednesday 3rd July.

Literature: Detective Fiction in Society and Culture

In these lectures Stephen Wilkinson will introduce students to the history of the detective genre and discuss its relationship to the development of capitalism, urbanisation and consumerist commodity culture. Students will be encouraged to read detective fiction as a prism through which societies, their anxieties and underlying psycho-political natures can be understood. Using the examples from the UK, US and Cuba students will gain an insight into the ways in which popular literature gives shape and form to our lives.
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Course Information

Dates:
Thu 26/09/2024 -
Thu 17/10/2024
Times:
6:30pm - 8:00pm
Duration:
4 sessions
Location:
Online
Tutor:
Guest Speaker
Course code:
Q00017701
How you'll learn:
Online
Availability:
10+ places remaining
Status:
Available
Fee range
Free to £7.40