The Four Ages of Poetry

"The Four Ages of Poetry", an essay of 1820 by Thomas Love Peacock, was both a significant study of poetry in its own right, and the stimulus for the Defence of Poetry by Shelley.[1]

Setting and tone

Much of the ‘Four Ages’ is an attack from a utilitarian standpoint on the Romantic poets with whom Peacock was closely associated, and whom indeed he defended publicly from criticism elsewhere.[2] But, ever the parodist, Peacock's argument cut both ways. As M. H. Abrams put it, “If he was a poet who mocked at poets from a Utilitarian frame of satirical reference, he was a Utilitarian who turned into ridicule the belief in utility and the march of intellect”.[3] Nevertheless, while humorous, Peacock's essay also raised several serious critical points.[4]

Poetic origins

Peacock offered a mocking account of how poets originally developed a claim to be historians or moralists, seeing the first poetry as created by a bard “always ready to celebrate the strength of [the king’s] arm, being first duly inspired by that of his liquor”.[5] As the inflater of royal ‘credit’, the poet was thus placed as precursor to contemporary speculators in paper money and financial credit.[6]

Primitivism

"Mr Scott digs up the poachers and cattle-stealers of the ancient border. Lord Byron cruises for thieves and pirates on the shores of the Morea….Mr Wordsworth picks up village legends from old women".[7] Peacock concluded that the present-day poet was a regressive influence opposed to progress and development, and (herein Peacock was outdoing Jeremy Bentham himself) of no utilitarian merit whatever.[8]

See also

References
  1. D Daiches ed., Companion to Literature 1 (1968) p. 416
  2. M H Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp (Oxford 1971) p. 356
  3. M H Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp (Oxford 1971) p. 126
  4. D Karlin, The Fgure of the Singer (2013) p. 43
  5. Quoted in M H Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp (Oxford 1971) p. 127
  6. R Mitchell, Sympathy and the State in the Romantic Era (2013) p. 196
  7. Pacock, quoted in D Hay, Young Romantics (London 2011) p. 207
  8. D Hay, Young Romantics (London 2011) p. 207
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