Denham, John (1615-1669)

English poet. He was frequently linked with Edmund Waller in the century after his death as one of those who ‘cleansed’ the language of the excesses of the metaphysical style and helped establish the closed heroic couplet as the proper medium for the Augustan poets of the 18th century. He wrote two plays The Sophy (1642), a tragedy in five acts, and The Famous Battle of the Catts in the Province of Ulster (1668). He is chiefly remembered for his poem Cooper's Hill (1642), which describes the scenery of the Thames Valley at Egham, and was the model for Alexander Pope's Windsor Forest (1713).

Born in Dublin and educated there and at Oxford, Denham joined the king in Oxford during the Civil War and was employed on many secret missions for him.