Topographical Poetry

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 eighteenth-century England, though examples date to the late classical period and recur through the medieval era and the Renaissance. Subgenres include the country house poem, written in seventeenth-century England to compliment a wealthy patron, and the prospect poem, describing a view from a distance or into the future; later examples include Alexander Pope's Windsor Forest, Matthew Arnold's The Scholar Gipsy and W. H. Auden's In Praise of Limestone.