The English literature major introduces students to one of the world's key literary traditions as well as to contemporary global English-language literary culture. Undertaking the formal study of English literature from its beginnings to the present day is to be introduced to a vast intellectual and cultural history--one that records the almost infinitely different ways in which men and women, from a great variety of different times and places, have lived, thought, argued, felt and imagined. Many of the novels, poems, plays and non-fictional works students encounter in this program rank amongst the greatest products of the human mind. The major also introduces students to some influential ways of thinking about literature.