BA English Honours Syllabus and Subjects 2024
The BA English Honours syllabus focuses on educating students in English language and literature by exploring a wide range of topics such as Popular Literature, British Literature, Post Colonial Literature, etc. The course is taught over a period of three years, divided into six semesters.
BA English Hons subjects include core subjects like Indian Classical Literature, European Classical Literature, History of Literature And Philology, etc., along with elective subjects like Contemporary India: Women and Empowerment, Modern European Drama, Women’s Writings, etc.
The BA English Honours course is taught following the course-specific curriculum and offers insights into a variety of skill-related courses needed in the field. This helps them land work in a variety of sectors, including media companies, the government, and MNCs.
Table of Contents
- Semester Wise BA English Honours Syllabus
- First Year BA English Honours Syllabus
- Second Year BA English Honours Syllabus
- Third Year BA English Honours Syllabus
- BA English Honours Subjects- Core and Electives
Semester Wise BA English Honours Syllabus
The B.A. English Honours syllabus includes lessons on areas like Indian literature, European literature, British literature, etc. that are significant. Candidates may choose from lists of electives offered by the English Honours Syllabus.
Given below is the syllabus of BA English Honours according to semester pattern:
BA English Honours First-Year Syllabus
BA English Honours 1st year syllabus covers fundamental topics like Introduction to literary theory, basic linguistic concepts, and concepts of English literature from various periods, including poetry, drama, and prose.
Below is the English Honours syllabus semester 1 and BA English Honours 2nd semester syllabus:
| Semester I | Semester II |
| History of Literature and Philology | Indian Writing in English |
| European Classical Literature | British Poetry and Drama (14th – 17th century) |
| Academic Writing and Composition | English Communication |
BA English Hons Second-Year Syllabus
The BA English Honours 2nd semester syllabus delves into the study of literary theory, postcolonial literature, thematic studies, critical analysis and research skills.
The 3rd semester English Honours syllabus and BA English honours 4th semester syllabus is given below:
| Semester III | Semester IV |
| American Literature | British Literature (18th century) |
| Popular Literature | British Romantic Literature |
| British Poetry and Drama (17th – 18th century) | 19th Century British Literature |
BA English Hons Third-Year Syllabus
BA English Hons 3rd year syllabus focuses on particular literary eras, genres, and themes; along with specialized areas like postcolonial literature, modern literary theory and other niche genres.
The BA Hons English syllabus 5th semester and 6th semester is given below:
| Semester V | Semester VI |
| Women's Writing | Modern European Drama |
| Early 20th Century British Literature | Postcolonial Literature |
| Literary Theory and Literary Criticism (Elective) | Contemporary India: Women and Empowerment (Elective) |
BA English Honours Subjects - Cores and Electives
The English Honours subjects are intended to encourage discussion on English writing idioms, styles, and writing patterns from a literary standpoint. The course is divided into core and elective subjects. Given below are the English honours subjects, in brief order:
BA English First Year Subjects
BA in English Hons core subjects focus on the study of European Classical Literature, Indian Writing in English, British Poetry and Drama, etc. Below BA English Honours subjects list:
| Subjects | Topics Covered | Type |
| History of Literature and Philology | Old English Heroic Poetry, Old English Prose and Chaucer, Elizabethan Sonnets, University Wits and Ben Jonson, Restoration Comedy of Manners and Eighteenth Century, Pre-Romantic Poetry and Romantic Non-fiction Prose | Core |
| European Classical Literature | Social and intellectual background, Homer, The Iliad, Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Ovid, Selections from Metamorphosis, 'Bacchus', Plautus, and Pot of Gold | Core |
| Indian Writing in English | Indian English, Indian English Literature and its Readership, Themes and Contexts of the Indian English Novel | Core |
| British Poetry and Drama (14th – 17th century) | Age of Feudalism: Social-Political Fragmentation, Structure of Society under the Church, Humanism in Renaissance | Core |
| Academic Writing and Composition | Introduction to the Writing Process, Introduction to the Conventions of Academic Writing, Writing in one’s own words: Summarizing and Paraphrasing, Critical Thinking: Syntheses, Analyses, and Evaluation | Elective |
| English Communication | Theory of Communication, Types and modes of Communication, Barriers and Strategies, Intra-personal, Interpersonal andGroup communication | Elective |
BA English Second Year Subjects
The second year BA English subjects explore American Literature, Popular Literature, British Poetry, and Drama, 19th Century British Literature, etc. The BA English second year subjects and topics covered are detailed in the table below.
| Subjects | Topics Covered | Type |
| American Literature | Robert Frost, 'After Apple Picking', Walt Whitman, 'O Captain, My Captain', Sylvia Plath, 'Daddy', Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Purloined Letter'. | Core |
| Popular Literature | Coming of Age, The Canonical and the Popular, Caste, Gender and Identity, Ethics and Education in Children‘s Literature, Sense and Nonsense. | Core |
| British Poetry and Drama (14th – 17th century) | Geoffrey Chaucer. “Wife of Bath ''. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.Ed. Nevill Coghill, Edmund Spenser. Sonnet LXXV. “One day I wrote her name…” Amoretti., John Donne. “The Sunne Rising'' and “ Valediction Forbidding Mourning”, Francis Bacon. “Of Empire” | Core |
| British Literature (18th century) | The Stage, Court and City, Religious and Political Thought, Ideas of Love and Marriage, Poetry and Drama of 17th -18th Centuries. | Core |
| British Romantic Literature | William Blake. “The Lamb”, “The Chimney Sweeper”, “The Tyger”, the Introduction to The Songs of Innocence., Robert Burns. “A Bard’s Epitaph” and “Scots Wha Hae”, William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey” | Core |
| 19th Century British Literature | Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre. 1847, Charles Dickens. Hard Times, Thomas Hardy. Tess of the d'Urbervilles.1891-92. Alfred Tennyson. “Ulysses” | Core |
BA English Third Year Subjects
The third year BA English subjects cover Women's Writing, Early 20th Century British Literature, Modern European Drama, Literary Theory, and Literary Criticism, etc. It also offers choices for students from discipline-specific elective courses.
Listed below are the BA English subjects for the third year along with their topics covered:
| Subjects | Topics Covered | Type |
| Women's Writing | Emily Dickinson. “I cannot live with you”. “I’m ‘wife’- I’ve finished that”, Sylvia Plath. “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus”, Alice Walker. The Color Purple, Katherine Mansfield. “Bliss”, Mahashweta Devi. “Draupadi” | Core |
| Early 20th Century British Literature | Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness.John Millington Synge. Riders to the Sea. James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. William Butler Yeats. “Byzantium”, “Sailing to Byzantium” | Core |
| Modern European Drama | Henrik Ibsen. “Ghosts”. Ghosts and Other Plays. Tr. Peter Watts. Penguin, 1964, Bertolt Brecht. The Good Person of Szechwan. Ed.&Tr. Ralph Manheim. Penguin, 2008, Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot | Core |
| Postcolonial Literature | Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “No One Writes to the Colonel”, Bessie Head. “The Collector of Treasures”, Ama Ata Aidoo. “The Girl Who Can” | Core |
| Literary Theory and Literary Criticism | Marxism, Antonio Gramsci. “The Formation of the Intellectuals” and “Hegemony (Civil Society) andSeparation of Powers”, Louis Althusser. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” | Elective |
| Contemporary India: Women and Empowerment | Social Construction of Gender (Masculinity and Femininity) and Patriarchy, History of Women's Movements in India (Pre-independence, post-independence )Women,Nationalism, Partition, Women and Political Participation | Elective |
BA English Honours Course Structure
Incorporating extensive research and group projects that are completed throughout the year, the BA English Honours syllabus course structure is nearly the same at all universities. The list shown below comprises the BA English Honours course structure:
- Core Subjects
- Elective Subjects
- Literary Theory
- Writing/ Translation/ Language
- Research Project/ Thesis Submission
BA English Honours Project Topics
The BA English Honours Projects provide students with the possibility to integrate what they have learned in class and apply it to their future professional careers. Several of the most common project topics are listed below:
- To prepare a presentation on Narratology and the Apocalypse in Dark Souls.
- To express The Materiality of the Fall in Paradise Lost in an essay.
- To make a presentation on “The President Told Us All to Go Shopping:” Late Capitalist .Rupture and Immigrant Recovery in Ling Ma’s Severance.
- To explain “This is my letter to the World”: Emily Dickinson in Dramatic Performance.
BA Hons English Reference Books
BA English Hons syllabus books help in understanding topics like literary periods, literary analysis and criticism, novels and prose, language and linguistics, dramatic techniques, etc.
BA English Honours Books First Year
BA Hons English books are available to students in the form of paperbacks and PDFs from many authors and publications. Some of the First year BA English Honours books are:
| Books | Authors | Topics Covered |
| Maple Press English Literature | William Long | Romanticism, Victorian Literature, Modernism, etc. |
| A History Of English Literature | Lakshmi Narain Agrawal | Middle English Literature, Renaissance, Romantic Poetry, etc. |
| Readings in Classical Literature | Harriet Raghunathan | Greek Tragedy, Roman Epic, Classical Philosophy, Mythology, etc. |
| A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning | John Donne | Metaphysical Poetry, Renaissance Literature, Poetic Devices, etc. |
| Orientalism and the Study of Indian Literature | Vinay Dharwadkar | World Literature, Orientalism and the Institution of Indian Literature, Orientalism and “The Language of Hindoostan”, etc. |
BA English Honours Books Second Year
The BA English Honours 2nd year books are provided in the table below for students' reference:
| Books | Authors | Topics Covered |
| A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | Frederick Douglass | Themes of Enslavement, Freedom, and Abolition |
| Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship andColonial Discourses | Chandra Talapade Mohanty | The concept of third-world women in Western scholarship |
| Self Reliance | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Individualism, Nonconformity, and Intuition |
| Swami and Friends | R.K. Narayan | The novel follows a ten-year-old schoolboy, Swaminathan, and his attempts to court the favour of a much wealthier schoolboy, Rajam. |
| Modern Indian Poetry in English | Bruce King | The relationship of the poetry to Indian and other traditions, class and caste exploitation, neocolonialism, the ecosystem, everyday life, surreal nightmares, family problems, exile, and the end of exile. |
BA English Honours Books Third Year
The third year books as per the BA English Honours syllabus are mentioned below:
| Books | Authors | Topics Covered |
| Borders and Boundaries | Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin | The experiences of women who faced violence, abduction, rape, widowhood, and loss of identity during the Partition |
| The Complete Psychological Worksof Sigmund Freud. | Sigmund Freud | Talk Therapy, Personality, Psyche, Psychosexual Development, Dream Analysis |
| Narrating Partition | Sukrita P. Kumar | Violence Against Women, Memory, The Urdu/Hindi Divide, and The Aftermath of the Event |
| A Room of One’s Own | Virginia Woolf | The underinvestment of society in women's education, Lack of women's voices telling their own stories |
| T. S. Eliot | Norton Anthology of EnglishLiterature | An Overview of Poetry, Drama, Prose Fiction, Essays, and Letters from Beowulf to the Beginning of the 21st century. |
Top BA English Honours Colleges
Top Arts Entrance Exams
BA English Honours Fee Structure
FAQs on BA English Honours Syllabus and Subjects
Q: How many subjects are there in BA English Honours?
A: In general, there are about 14 to 15 subjects taught in BA English Honours, but the choice of electives varies based on the university structure.
Q: Can we specialize in a particular genre or period in BA English Honours?
A: Yes, students can specialize in genres or periods like Shakespearean studies, postcolonial literature, modernist literature, etc.
Q: What literary theories are included in the semester 1 English Honours syllabus?
A: Literary theories like Structuralism, Feminist Literary Theory, Poststructuralism, Psychoanalytic Literary Theory, etc., are included in BA English Honours syllabus semester 1.
Q: Does the BA English Honours program include research projects or an honors thesis?
A: Yes, BA English Hons includes study and research projects such as to prepare a presentation on Narratology and the Apocalypse in Dark Souls or to express The Materiality of the Fall in Paradise Lost in an essay and many others.
Q: How is the BA English Honours syllabus assessed?
A: Assessments can include a mix of written examinations, debates, group discussion study and project works.. The evaluation methods can vary depending on the nature of the subject.
Q: How BA English Hons syllabus helps in developing writing skills?
A: Reading and studying all those pieces of literature, poems, dramas, etc., students will build an outstanding and stronghold of grammar (laws of the English language) when it comes to talking, speaking, or writing in English.
