Topographical poetry
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Topographical poetry or loco-descriptive poetry is a genre of poetry that describes, and often praises, a landscape or place. John Denham's 1642 poem "Cooper's Hill" established the genre, which peaked in popularity in 18th-century England with the poetry of William Wordsworth (e.g. "Tintern Abbey" [1798]). Examples of topographical verse date, however, to the late classical period, and can be found throughout the medieval era and during the Renaissance. Though the earliest examples come mostly from continental Europe, the topographical poetry in the tradition originating with Denham concerns itself with the classics, and many of the various types of topographical verse, such as river, ruin, or hilltop poems were established by the early 17th century. Alexander Pope's "Windsor Forest" (1713) and John Dyer's "Grongar Hill' (1762) are two other oft-mentioned examples. More recently, Matthew Arnold's "The Scholar Gipsy" (1853) praises the Oxford countryside, and W. H. Auden's "In Praise of Limestone" (1948) uses a limestone landscape as an allegory.
