Akenside, Mark, 1721-70, English poet and physician. His chief literary work was the didactic poem The Pleasures of Imagination (1744). Among his other works are the neoclassical Odes on Various Subjects (1745) and the Epistle to Curio (1744), a vigorous political satire. Akenside's conversion to Tory principles at the accession of George III earned him the appointment of physician to the queen.