Myths of the Golden Age in European Culture

Hesiod’s concept of a Golden Age, together with analogous myths – Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebrew, etc. – speak to the psychic appeal, perhaps even deep-rooted need, for humans to conceive alternate worlds free from the anguish, toil, and dangers of the one they inhabit. Classical poets and philosophers explored the myth; the Middle Ages imagined it as the land of Cockaigne; Early Modern dramatists incorporated it; Romantic poets and nineteenth-century writers imagined it in various guises. This volume explores the configuration presented by Hesiod and the history of its reception and transformation in European literature and culture. The chapters study how texts written in specific historical moments of European history reshape elements of the myth to explore contemporary issues of concern. The book addresses these issues of cultural hybridization, and, from a transhistorical perspective, provides new insights into the dynamics of epochal shifts. It also looks at similar configurations in non-Western civilizations (China), which complements the spectrum of contributions that covers periods from classical antiquity to the Age of Goethe. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Contributors Preface Introduction 1. Hesiod and Empedocles on the Decline of Humankind 2. Eros and Eris in Hesiod’s Myth of the Golden Age 3. In Defense of the Evil Brother, an Interpretation of Hesiod’s Works and Days 4. The Oldest Reading: Prometheus and the Arts of Divination 5. “Immeasurably Preferred to Gold”: The Saintly Age of Medieval Christian Salvation 6. After the End: The Troubadours, the Golden Age, and a Fading Civilization 7. “T’excel the Golden Age”: Golden Worlds in the English Renaissance 8. Patriarchal Fantasies and Proto-Feminist Libertarianism: Don Quijote’s Praise of the Golden Age and Marcela’s Plea for Freedom 9. The Golden Age Restored, London 1616: Court Entertainment and Stuart Politics 10. The Golden Age in the Age of Goethe 11. One Golden Age? Or Many? Chinese Conceptions of the Ideal Society Index