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Degree Level Essays
Welcome to Manchester Maths & English Tuition‘s resource bank of degree-level English essays.
Below you will find a list of 1st class and high 2:1 degree-level English essays written by our tutors. For English students, they’ve been made available here as examples of how to write at these levels and should be used as models when considering how to:
- Write an effective introduction and conclusion;
- Fluently build your introduction into a compelling main body;
- Structure your points optimally;
- Merge your ideas smoothly without abrupt changes in direction;
- Use concise and efficient quotations that get right to the point of your reasoning without wasting your word-count;
- Maintain the integrity of your essay’s core argument;
- Communicate your ideas efficiently; and
- Optimise the quality of your writing so that your word-limit is used as productively as possible.
The essays below are also available to students or enthusiasts who are simply interested in their subject matter and are looking to learn more.
If you have any questions or would like to reach out to us concerning the essays provided on this page, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0161 327 1381.
Final Year Essays
- How does science fiction create a new world which is plausible?
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 2353
- Primary Texts: The War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells, 1898)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- To what extent does science fiction explore what it means to be human?
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3388
- Primary Texts: The Chemistry of Tears (Peter Carey, 2012), Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- Consider the representation of witchcraft and witch-mongering, and their wider implications, in The Witch of Edmonton.
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 2421
- Primary Texts: The Witch of Edmonton (Thomas Dekker et al, 1621), A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes (George Gifford, 1593), The wonderful discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer a Witch, late of Edmonton (Henry Goodcole, 1621), Daemonologie (James Stuart, 1597)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- ‘I whole in body, and mind, / but very weak in Purse’ (Whitney, Wyll and Testament). Compare representations of and attitudes towards poverty and/or the pursuit of prosperity and social advancement.
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3409
- Primary Texts: Edward II (Christopher Marlowe, 1593), Eastward Ho! (John Marston, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, 1605)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1
- The True Chronicle History of King Leir (Anonymous) & King Lear (William Shakespeare) – Differences in Outlook and Interpretation.
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 2250
- Primary Texts: The True Chronicle History of King Leir (Anonymous, 1594), King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1606)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- Discuss the early modern treatment of one of the following motifs: the baiting of a shrewish wife.
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3470
- Primary Texts: A Pleasant Conceited History, Called The Taming of a Shrew (Anonymous, 1594), The Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare, 1623)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1
- “A new Hedonism – that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol”; An examination of the passionate and the rational in turn of the century literary culture
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 4615
- Primary Texts: The Picture of Dorian Grey (Oscar Wilde, 1891), The Birth of Tragedy (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872), Culture and Anarchy (Matthew Arnold, 1869), Fortnightly Review‘s ‘The New Hedonism’ (Grant Allen, 1894)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- Dissertation: A consideration of Platonic and Neoplatonic sentiment in the shorter poems and translations of Edmund Spenser
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 6764
- Primary Texts: A Theatre for Voluptuous Worldlings (Jan Van Der Noot, 1569), Ruines of Rome, by Bellay (Edmund Spenser, 1591), The Ruines of Time (Edmund Spenser, 1591)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- Discuss Shakespeare’s dramatic characterisation of Iago in Othello
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 1956
- Primary Texts: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (William Shakespeare, 1604)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- ‘Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?’ Examine Shakespeare’s treatment of the pursuit of revenge in his plays
- Academic Level: Final Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3070
- Primary Texts: Titus Andronicus (William Shakespeare, 1594), The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (William Shakespeare, 1609)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
Second Year Essays
- To what extent do the different, often conflicting, perspectives of various groups (for example, older and younger generations; women and men; combatants and non-combatants; war supporters and conscientious objectors) preoccupy the literary representations of the First World War?
- Academic Level: Second Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3225
- Primary Texts: All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque, 1929), Journey’s End (R. C. Sherriff, 1928)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1
- Just how transgressive is Marlowe’s self-fashioning shepherd?
- Academic Level: Second Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 2212
- Primary Texts: Tamburlaine the Great (Part One) (Christopher Marlowe, 1587)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: 1st
- ‘“But, ah,” Desire still cries, “give me some food”: the Elizabethans may have been fascinated by the aesthetic appeal of Neoplatonism, but common sense made them suspicious of its philosophical claims.’ Discuss.
- Academic Level: Second Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3334
- Primary Texts: Astrophel and Stella (Sir Philip Sidney, 1591), The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (William Shakespeare, 1609), ‘Chorus Sacerdotum’ from The Tragedy of Mustapha (Baron Brooke Fulke Greville, 1609), ‘The Extasie’ from Songs and Sonnets (John Donne, 1633)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1
- How does modern film compare with medieval text on kingship and knighthood?
- Academic Level: Second Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 1386
- Primary Texts: The Sword and the Stone (1963), King Arthur (2006), Robin Hood (1973)
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1
- What attitudes to authority are displayed in medieval outlaw stories? Can you see why?
- Academic Level: Second Year
- Referencing Style: Harvard
- Word Count: 3265
- Primary Texts: Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Gesta Herewardi, The Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, The Romance of Fouke Fitz Waryn, The Tale of Gamelyn, The Romance Of Eustace The Monk, Reynard the Fox, Robin Hood and the Bishop
- Date Published: 19/05/20
- Grade Awarded: High 2:1