Professor John Haffenden FBA FRSL is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield.
Education and positions held
A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1st class, in English Language and Literature: Richard F. Littledale Prize), where he edited Icarus, he was supervised for his doctorate at St Peter's College, Oxford by Richard Ellmann. He was for two years a Lecturer in English and Liberal Studies, Oxford College of Further Education, before teaching at the University of Exeter, 1973-74.
A member of staff at the University of Sheffield since 1975, he was made Reader in 1988 and promoted to a Personal Chair in 1994. He was Visiting Lecturer, Peking University, Beijing, China, 1984; Guest Lecturer at the 50th Anniversary Conference of "Xinan Lienda" (National Southwest Associated University), Kunming, China, 1988.
He was a British Academy Research Reader, 1989â€"91; Leverhulme Research Fellow, 1995-96.
He has been a Fellow of the Yaddo Foundation, 1975; Visiting Fellow Commoner, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1995â€"96; Visiting Scholar, St John's College, Oxford, 1997; Visiting Fellow, Magdalen College, Oxford 1998.
He is a Member of the Society of Authors; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; Fellow of the English Association; and Fellow of the British Academy.
Since 2009 he is Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London; Principal Investigator of the T.S.Eliot Editorial Research Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2009â€"14; General Editor of the Letters of T.S.Eliot.
Publications
- Henry's Fate & Other Poems 1967-1972, by John Berryman: edited with an Introduction (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977; London: Faber & Faber, 1978)
- John Berryman: A Critical Commentary (London: Macmillan; New York: New York University Press, 1980)
- Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation (London: Faber & Faber, 1981)
- The Life of John Berryman (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982)
- W.H.Auden: The Critical Heritage (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982)
- Novelists in Interview (London and New York: Methuen, 1985)
- The Royal Beasts and Other Works, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987; Iowa University Press, 1988)
- Argufying: Essays on Literature and Culture, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987; Iowa University Press, 1988). Chosen by Sir Isaiah Berlin as one of the books of the year 1987 in the Sunday Times
- Essays on Renaissance Literature, Vol 1: "Donne and the New Philosophy, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
- Essays on Renaissance Literature, Vol 2: The Drama, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
- The Strengths of Shakespeare's Shrew: Essays, Memoirs and Interviews, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)
- Berryman's Shakespeare; edited with an Introduction (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999; London: Tauris, 2000)
- The Complete Poems of William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 2000; Tallahassee, Florida: University of Florida Press, 2000). Chosen by Sir Frank Kermode as one of the 'International Books of the Year', Times Literary Supplement, 1 December 2000; by David Sexton as 'Book of the Year', Evening Standard (London) December 2000
- William Empson: Among the Mandarins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Winner of the American Publishers Association Award for Biography and Autobiography, 2005
- William Empson: Against the Christians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
- Selected Letters of William Empson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
General Editor:
- Letters of T.S.Eliot: Vol 1: 1898-1922 Revised edition. (Faber & Faber, 2009)
- Letters of T.S.Eliot: Vol 2: 1923-1925 (Faber & Faber, 2009)
Editor (with Valerie Eliot):
- Letters of T.S.Eliot: Vol 3: 1926-1927 (Faber & Faber, 2012)
- Letters of T.S.Eliot: Vol 4: 1929-1929 (Faber & Faber, 2013)
- Letters of T.S.Eliot: Vol 5: 1930-1931 (Faber & Faber, 2014)