The Silver Age of Fiction single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 The Silver Age of Fiction
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‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 70 no. 4 Summer 2011 Z1830022 2011 periodical issue 2011 pg. 110-115
Last amended 9 Feb 2017 10:31:38
110-115 The Silver Age of Fictionsmall AustLit logo Meanjin
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