MA Syllabus 2026 & Complete Subject Guide

MA English Syllabus Punjab University (PU Lahore): Part I and Part II Papers, Books and Marks

The University of the Punjab, Lahore, teaches MA English in two annual parts of 500 marks each. Part I has five compulsory papers: Classical Poetry, Drama, Novel, Prose and American Literature. Part II has four compulsory papers (Poetry II, Drama II, Novel II, Literary Criticism) plus one optional paper chosen from Short Stories, Linguistics, Literature in English Around the World or Essay. The official outline PDF is hosted on pu.edu.pk.

MA English at the University of the Punjab at a Glance

This page covers the University of the Punjab (PU), Lahore. It is not Panjab University, Chandigarh, and it is not Punjabi University, Patiala. Their MA English programmes run on a semester pattern with different papers.

At PU Lahore the degree is split into two parts, and each part carries 500 marks across five papers of 100 marks.

Download the Official PU MA English Syllabus PDF

The syllabus comes from the university itself. Open the official MA English outline (PDF) for the full scheme, or browse PU's M.A./M.Sc. course outline page for every other subject.

Is This Syllabus Current?

PU's English outline states that it took effect from the 2002-03 session, and the Literary Criticism paper has two additions made by a notification dated 15 March 2005. As of 1 October 2026, PU's course-outline page still links this same file for English. If the department issues a revision, the PU notice overrides this page. When in doubt, check with your department or the PU examination branch.

MA English Part I Syllabus

Part I Papers and Marks

Paper I: Classical Poetry

The paper covers Chaucer's Prologue, Books I and IX of Milton's Paradise Lost, Donne's love and divine poems, and Pope's The Rape of the Lock. It also includes a set of poems by Wyatt and Surrey. The official PDF lists each title.

Paper II: Drama

Students read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Shakespeare's Othello and The Winter's Tale, and Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Paper III: Novel

Five novels are prescribed. They are Trollope's Barchester Towers, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, George Eliot's Adam Bede, Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities and Hardy's The Return of the Native.

Paper IV: Prose

The prose paper opens with twelve essays by Francis Bacon. These are Of Truth, Of Death, Of Revenge, Of Adversity, Of Simulation and Dissimulation, Of Parents and Children, Of Great Place, Of Nobility, Of Superstition, Of Friendship, Of Ambition and Of Studies. It continues with Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Russell's Unpopular Essays. Only the introduction to Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism is prescribed. From Seamus Heaney's The Redress of Poetry, only the title essay is set.

Paper V: American Literature

The poetry section features Adrienne Rich (Diving into the Wreck, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers, Final Notation, Gabriel) and Sylvia Plath (Ariel, Morning Song, Poppies in October, The Bee Meeting, The Arrival of the Bee Box). Richard Wilbur and John Ashbery are also included. Two plays follow: Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, restricted to the first play of the trilogy, "The Homecoming," and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. The novels are Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Toni Morrison's Jazz.

MA English Part II Syllabus

Compulsory Papers I to IV

Poetry II is split into two sections. Section A has a selection from Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, including The Tyger, London and A Poison Tree. It adds Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Dejection: An Ode, and Keats's Hyperion Book I with the odes To Autumn, To a Nightingale and On a Grecian Urn. Section B moves to modern poets: Philip Larkin (Mr Bleaney, Church Going, Ambulances, MCMXIV), Seamus Heaney (Personal Helicon, The Tollund Man, A Constable Calls, Toome Road, Casting and Gathering) and Ted Hughes (The Thought-Fox, Chances, That Morning, Full Moon and Little Frieda).

Drama II prescribes Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Brecht's Galileo, Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Edward Bond's The Sea.

Novel II prescribes Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi.

Literary Criticism combines practical criticism with Aristotle's Poetics, Raymond Williams's Modern Tragedy and Catherine Belsey's Critical Practice. T. S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and Philip Sidney's Apology for Poetry are the two 2005 additions. Raman Selden's An Introduction to Literary Criticism is listed as a reference.

Optional Papers V to VIII: Choose One

Short Stories has 23 stories by writers including Sara Suleri, Naguib Mahfouz, Poe, Doris Lessing, Flannery O'Connor, Joyce, Nadine Gordimer, Kafka, Achebe and Hanif Kureishi.

Linguistics covers introduction, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and stylistics.

Literature in English Around the World pairs Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba with Brian Friel's Translations. It adds two novels, Ngũgĩ's The River Between and Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, plus poems from thirteen poets. They include Taufiq Rafat, Daud Kamal, Zulfikar Ghose, Vikram Seth, Derek Walcott, Anna Akhmatova, Nissim Ezekiel and Moniza Alvi.

For Essay, the official PDF lists only the title with no further content.

How to Choose Your Optional Paper

This is guidance, not a PU rule. It is based on the volume of the published lists. Literature in English Around the World has the longest reading load, with two plays, two novels and thirteen poets. Short Stories is spread across many short texts. Linguistics is concept-driven rather than text-driven, and Essay is a writing-skills paper. Pick the one that matches how you study best, and ask your department which optional papers it actually teaches.

Other MA Syllabi at Punjab University

PU publishes an official outline for each MA subject. Here is what the History and Economics files contain, with direct links for the rest.

MA History Syllabus (PU)

The History curriculum, revised in 2004, has five core courses in Part I, each worth 100 marks. They are Early History of Islam, Research Methodology and Historiography, State and Society in Muslim India (1206-1707), Muslim Struggle for Independence (1858-1947) and Government and Politics in Pakistan (1947-1999).

In Part II you choose one of three groups of five courses each:

• Group A, Indo-Pakistan History
• Group B, Islamic History
• Group C, Western History

A thesis can replace two courses of your group if you qualify. Qualifying means a first division in BA, a first division in History at BA, or at least 55% in MA Part I. See the official History PDF.

MA Economics Syllabus (PU)

The economics curriculum runs on the annual system over two years, with 1,100 marks in total. Part I has Micro-economic Theory, Macro-economic Theory, Mathematical Economics, Statistics for Economists and Islamic Economics at 100 marks each, plus Major Issues in Pakistan Economy at 50 marks. Part II has International Trade Theory and Finance, Econometrics and Development Economics at 100 marks each, and Research Methodology at 50 marks. Two optional papers of 100 marks each come from the specialisation sets, and a thesis may replace one of them. The pass mark is 40% per paper and 45% aggregate in each part. See the official Economics PDF.

MA Arabic, Education, Urdu and Islamic Studies

For these subjects, use PU's official outlines: MA Arabic, MA Education (Elementary), MA Urdu, new course and MA Islamic Studies. For general overviews on ilmkidunya, see MA Urdu syllabus and MA Islamiat syllabus.

Past Papers, Date Sheets and Next Steps

Once you know the syllabus, practise with PU Masters past papers. Check the MA English date sheet page and PU's official date sheets for exam dates.