John Kerrigan, FBA (born 1956) is a British literary scholar, with interests including the works of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and modern poetry since Emily Dickinson and Hopkins, along with Irish studies.
[1] He has lectured extensively in Europe, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and his publications are internationally acclaimed.
[4] During the 1980s Kerrigan established himself as one of a group of scholars who revolutionised the editing of Shakespeare by discrediting the practice of 'conflating' variant early texts of such plays as Hamlet and King Lear, though his position, like that of others, has become more complicated over time.
His recent Shakespearean output includes essays on 'The Phoenix and Turtle' (2013), an extensive analysis of the question 'How Celtic was Shakespeare?
[7] Over the last couple of decades John Kerrigan has published numerous essays on modern poetry, including Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, Roy Fisher, Geoffrey Hill, Denise Riley, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Paul Muldoon.