After one year as William Noble fellow in the
University of Liverpool he took up a lectureship in English in 1936 at the
University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where he stayed until 1945. His Witwatersrand doctorate thesis was later published as
Edward Benlowes (1602–76): Biography of a Minor Poet (1952). While in South Africa, he reviewed books in the medium of radio broadcasts from 1940 until 1945. In 1945, after a decade in South Africa, he returned to London as a professor at
University College London and soon was promoted to Reader. In 1954 he was the first chair of English at
Westfield College. During this time, he published essays on Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night and
As You Like It, and he published the study
The Structural Problem in Henry IV (1956), which was his inaugural lecture at Westfield College. In 1954 Jenkins agreed to edit Shakespeare's
Hamlet for the New Arden Shakespeare, and then in 1958 he became joint general editor of the Arden series, along with Harold Brooks. Jenkins believed "editing was the most valuable of all scholarly activities, for the edition of a text will stand for future ages long after the fogs of critical opinion have dispersed" Writing in the
Shakespeare Newsletter, he said that "the complex relation between Q2 and F remains the chief unsolved problem of the
Hamlet texts". E. A. J. Honigmann suggests that Jenkins’ characteristic spirit of combativeness in the notes to the Arden
Hamlet may surprise some readers, but that it is “connected to Jenkins' flair for getting at the truth and the great value he places on it.” He was a visiting professor at
Duke University in America from 1957 to 1958. In 1967 he became Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English at the
University of Edinburgh. He retired early (in 1971) in London to work on his edition of
Hamlet, published in 1982. His work on
Hamlet produced eight articles or major lectures, including his British Academy lecture in 1963, "Hamlet and Ophelia", and his 1967 lecture at the University of Edinburgh, "The Catastrophe in Shakespearean Tragedy". He also was a professor at the
University of Oslo. According to
The Guardian, "His courtesy and brilliance as a lecturer marked the whole of his career, and no one who has been his student will forget his lectures, which were outstanding for their wit and vivacity, as well as their clarity of analysis." He was a member of the council of the Malone Society (1955–1989) and its president 1989–2000. He was on the editorial board of Shakespeare Survey (1964–72). He was a senior fellow of the
British Academy (1989), a fellow of University College London (1992), and a fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature (1999). Jenkins received an honorary D.Litt. from
Iona College in New Rochelle (1983). In 1986 Jenkins received the annual
Shakespeare Prize from the
Hamburg-based
Alfred Toepfer Foundation and the fellowship of the British Academy in 1989. A book of essays published in 1987 in his honor,
Fanned and Winnowed Opinions, takes its title from a line in
Hamlet (Act V, scene ii, line 189). It includes sixteen essays by an "impressive list of contributors including several who edited plays for Arden Shakespeare under Jenkins direction, including Harold Brooks,
E. A. J. Honigmann, Kenneth Palmer,
Kenneth Muir, and Richard Proudfoot. It also includes a memoir and a bibliography of Jenkins' publications. Jenkins served on the council of the
Malone Society for forty years, and he was elected its president in 1989. ==Marriage==