Sir Walter Raleigh or Ralegh was a famed English writer, poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer. Raleigh is generally considered one of the foremost poets of the Elizabethan era. His poetry is generally written in the relatively straightforward, unornamented mode known as the plain style. C. S. Lewis considered Raleigh one of the era's "silver poets", a group of writers who resisted the Italian Renaissance influence of dense classical reference and elaborate poetic devices.