Departmental homepageProfessor Kerrigan was brought up in Liverpool. After studying at Oxford, he came to Cambridge as a lecturer in 1982. He held the chair of Professor of English 2000 between 2001 and 2023 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2013. Professor Kerrigan has given talks in many parts of the world, including the USA and Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Peru, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand.
Professor Kerrigan teaches in College on Shakespeare and for the Tragedy paper.
His research interests have centred on Shakespeare; 17th-century literature, including cultural relations between the three Stuart kingdoms and into continental Europe; Irish studies; and British and Irish poetry since 1900. His ongoing research and publication is on early modern English Literature, the Victorian period and British and Irish literature since 1900.
Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
On Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature: Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Shakespeare's Binding Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Shakespeare's Originality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
