SOURCE: Korshin, Paul J. “The Evolution of Neoclassical Poetics: Cleveland, Denham, and Waller as Poetic Theorists.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 2 (1968): 125-35.

In the following excerpt, Korshin outlines Waller's contributions to the development of poetic verse and neoclassical poetic theory.

As an example of the evolution of neoclassical poetics, Waller presents certain difficulties which we do not encounter in the study of the other precursors of the period, for his career, which starts earlier than Cleveland's, continued until past 1680, when the style which he helped to propagate had achieved considerable influence and great appreciation. His widest reputation has always been as a poetic technician, a refiner of language, a master of sweetness and elegance, but generally lacking in profundity or sublimity. Waller, moreover, avoided controversy rather successfully; with the exception of his two poems on Cromwell, he prosecuted a long career as a successful Royalist, writing leisurely and occasionally. His love...