Who was the first official English poet laureate?

John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668.

He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John".

Dryden was the dominant literary figure and influence of his age. He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry by writing successful satires, religious pieces, fables, epigrams, compliments, prologues, and plays with it; he also introduced the alexandrine and triplet into the form.

In his poems, translations, and criticism, he established a poetic diction appropriate to the heroic couplet - Auden referred to him as "the master of the middle style" - that was a model for his contemporaries and for much of the 18th century.

The considerable loss felt by the English literary community at his death was evident in the elegies written about him. Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant poetic form of the 18th century.