Edmund Waller
born March 3, 1606, Coleshill, Hertfordshire, Eng.
died Oct. 21, 1687, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
English poet whose adoption of smooth, regular versification
prepared the way for the heroic couplet’s emergence by the
end of the century as the dominant form of poetic
expression. His importance was fully recognized by his age.
“Mr. Waller reformed our numbers,” said John Dryden, who,
with Alexander Pope, followed him and raised the couplet to
its most concentrated form.
Waller was educated at Eton College and the University of
Cambridge and entered Parliament while still a young man. In
1631 he married the heiress of a wealthy London merchant,
but she died three years later. He then paid unsuccessful
court to Lady Dorothy Sidney (whom he addressed in poetry as
Sacharissa) and in 1644 married Mary Bracey.
During the political turmoil of the 1640s, with
Parliament arrayed against the King, Waller was at first a
champion of religious toleration and an opponent of the
bishops. He then drifted to the King’s cause, and in 1643 he
was deeply involved in a conspiracy (sometimes known as
Waller’s plot) to establish London as a stronghold of the
King, leading to the poet’s arrest in May. By wholesale
betrayal of his colleagues, and by lavish bribes, he managed
to avoid the death sentence, but he was banished and heavily
fined. He then lived abroad until 1651, when he made his
peace with his distant cousin Oliver Cromwell, later lord
protector of the Commonwealth.
Several of Waller’s poems, including “Go, lovely
Rose!”—one of the most famous lyric poems in English
literature—had circulated for some 20 years before the
appearance of his Poems in 1645. The first edition claiming
full authorization, however, was that of 1664. In 1655
appeared his “Panegyrick to my Lord Protector” (i.e.,
Cromwell), but in 1660 he also celebrated “To the King, upon
his Majesties happy return.” He became a member of the Royal
Society and was returned to Parliament in 1661, where he
held moderate opinions and advocated religious toleration.
His later works include Divine Poems (1685). The Second Part
of Mr. Waller’s Poems was published in 1690.
Waller’s poetry was held in high esteem throughout the
18th century, but his reputation waned in the 19th century
along with that of Augustan poetry in general. His technical
achievement in leading away from the dense verse of the
Metaphysical poets lies in his incorporation of wit more
related to rational judgment and in his replacement of
Metaphysical poetry’s dramatic immediacy, argumentative
structure, and ethical seriousness with generalizing
statement, easy associative development, and urbane social
comment. His pursuit of definitive phrasing through
inversion and balance led to the tight, symmetrical
patterning of the Augustan heroic couplet. Waller helped to
transmit to the Augustans a synthesis of the regular iambic
norm with native English four-stress alliterative metre and
showed its use for expressive emphasis, as in the line
“Invíte affećtion, and restráin our ráge.” Waller is also
remembered for the distinction of his poems on public themes
and for his elegance, lyrical grace, and formal polish.
