Sir John Denham

author

Sir John Denham

1615–1669

A Royalist poet and courtier from the 17th century, he is best remembered for Cooper’s Hill, a landmark poem that helped shape the English landscape meditation. His life mixed literature, politics, and public office, giving his work a lived sense of history and place.

1 Audiobook

Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

by Edmund Waller, Sir John Denham

About the author

Born in Dublin in 1615, Sir John Denham was the son of a senior judge and spent most of his life in England. He studied at Oxford and at Lincoln’s Inn, and although he was trained for law, he became known for poetry instead.

Denham’s reputation rests above all on Cooper’s Hill, an influential poem that joins description of the countryside with reflection on politics, history, and morality. Readers have long seen it as an early and important example of the English topographical or landscape poem.

He also played a public role during and after the English Civil War, supporting the Royalist cause and later serving as Surveyor of the King’s Works after the Restoration. Denham died in March 1669 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, a sign of the standing he achieved in both literary and court life.