Sir John Denham

Ian Gordon (Anglia Ruskin University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

Born 1615
Died 1669
Activity 1635-1669

Places

Born in Ireland, Republic of (Eire)
Active in Ireland, Republic of (Eire)

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist
Poet

Resources

Denham's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Sir John Denham (1615-69) courtier, politician, diplomat and wit, was a highly regarded poet in his own time and for well over a century after his death. Towards the end of his life, in 1664, John Dryden praised the “majesty of the style” of Denham’s best-known poem,

Cooper’s Hill

, saying that it “ever will be the exact standard of good writing”. Half a century later, in 1713, Alexander Pope echoed Dryden’s praise, referring in

Windsor-Forest

to “majestic Denham”, and proclaiming that: “On Cooper’s Hill eternal Wreaths shall grow,/ While lasts the Mountain, or while Thames shall flow” (265-6). Towards the end of the eighteenth century, in his

Life of Denham

, 1779, Samuel Johnson described the poet as “a genius born to improve the literature of his country”.…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3065 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Sir John Denham". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 June 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1227, accessed 25 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here