Kristine Haugen studies British literary history of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially the history of reading poetry, literary humanism, and connections with the continent of Europe. She has also investigated how the interdisciplinary erudition of the Renaissance and Enlightenment enlarges our understanding of English literature. That interaction raises important new questions about our usual habits of periodization and about the place of England in Europe.

Haugen is completing a book on the theory and practice of English poetic rhythm from the Renaissance to the present. It emerges that a flexible, impassioned metrical sound has nearly always been known and appreciated, and follows that a regular poetic sound was a deliberate and meaningful choice. Her other notable projects include an article on Alexander Pope's reading of Horace as a potentially dangerous philosophical poet and an essay on English literature's difficult encounters with Europe from Chaucer to T. S. Eliot.