The Augustan Poets were the leading English poets of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, especially writers such as John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Jonathan Swift. They looked back to the poetry of ancient Rome for style and standards, favoring order, balance, wit, clarity, and polished form. The name comes from the age of the Roman emperor Augustus, when poets such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid wrote.
The term is often linked with Neoclassicism, since Augustan poets prized classical restraint and regularity over emotional excess.
Example
John Dryden and Alexander Pope are often called Augustan poets because their verse favors wit, control, and classical restraint over passionate outburst.