Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller (born March 3, 1606, Coleshill, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died Oct. 21, 1687, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire) was an 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...