High stake tests are known to drive curricula and affect teachers and learners in numerous ways; what has come to be known as test washback. Thus far, almost all washback studies have focused on national or international language proficiency tests. There are little, if any, researches addressing the washback of high stake tests of English literature. The current study examined the washback effect of the English Literature Module of the Admission Test of English Literature (ATEL) on test takers' learning and attitudes as well as on their test preparation materials. For this purpose, 100 graduate students of English literature from Iranian state universities completed a questionnaire designed to measure the washback of ATEL. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as t-test. The results revealed that the test significantly influenced test takers' learning of English literature as well as their attitudes towards it. More specifically, it was found that the test, being beyond the zone of proximal challenge, causes most test takers to forsake the entire English literature module in favour of the general proficiency module and to hold negative attitudes towards the test.