Coopers Hill A Poem by Denham, John - 1643

Printed: 1643. 1615-1669 Quarto, 6.25 X 7.5 inches . Second edition. A4 B2. The complex textual history of Coopers Hill is fully discussed in Brendan O Hehir: Expans'd Hieroglyphicks, Univ. California Press, 1969. It was probably written c.1641 and drafts circulated in manuscript. First printed in London in 1642, it was reprinted in Oxford in 1643 and then London again in 1650, probably with Denham's consent despite the statement on the title of the 1655 edition. A major revision was published in 1655. All the printed editions are uncommon. It is usually cited as the first major English topographical poem, but its imagery is equally valid as an emblematic paradigm of society at the time of the Civil War. Denham (1615-69) took the Royalist side during the Civil Wars; this piece about Chertsey Abbey, dismantled by order of Henry VIII, and the scenery around Windsor, is a classic of topographical poetry.Denham's innovation was much admired by such writers as Herrick, Dryden, Addison, Pope, Goldsmith and Johnson. Coopers Hill was first printed in 1642, with further printings in 1642, 1650, and 1653; these are all traditionally termed piracies, and at the very least they present a text which was later much altered. According to Spence, Pope compared the early and late versions, and was much impressed by the "admirable judgement" of Denham's revisions. Dryden singled out the famous apostrophe to the Thames, which is printed here for the first time.