Edmund Waller, Instructions to a Painter

Glyn Pursglove (Swansea University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Sean Seeger (University of Essex), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1665

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

Waller's Instructions to a Painter has an importance in the history of English poetry rather greater than the one its own relatively modest qualities might suggest. The poem's full title was Instructions to a painter, for the drawing of a picture of the state and posture of the English forces at sea, under the command of His Royal Highness in the conclusion of the year 1664. Its first publication was as a broadside. An expanded second edition (1666) added to essentially the same title a clause to explain that the poem dealt with the battel & victory obtained over the Dutch, June 3, 1665. In 1658 Waller contributed commendatory verses to a translation, by his friend Sir Thomas Higgons, of the Italian poet Giovanni Francesco Busenello's poem (addressed to the painter Pietro Liberi) in celebration...

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421 words

Citation: Pursglove, Glyn. "Instructions to a Painter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 October 2000 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4463, accessed 05 December 2025.]

Edmund Waller, Instructions to a Painter

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