Hesiod's Five Races of Men and Peacock's Four Ages of Poetry

Peacock attacks poetry as being an antiquated and superfluous intellectual engagement in a modern, progressive society. It seems to quite staunchly critique on the Romantic tendency to elevate poetry (as with Samuel Taylor Coleridge). Peacock argues that, in the age of philosophy and science, poetry no longer retains value and import. To lend credibility to his argument, Peacock cites classical literature as seen in the lines: "Poetry, like the world, may be said to have four ages, but in a different order: the first age of poetry being the age of iron; the second, of gold; the third, of silver; and the fourth, of brass (Peacock 1).

This alludes to Hesiod's myth of the ages of the world. Hesiod's myth explains the degeneration of the world through its progression from the Golden Age, to the Silver and Bronze Ages and towards the Iron Age. Hesiod's four ages of the world are symbolically represented by five races of men. The distinction among them reveals hostility between humans and Gods. The first three races--the Gold, Silver, and Bronze ages--were both created and destroyed by Zeus. The fourth race of men was known to be nobler and more righteous: a god-like race of humans referred to as Demi-gods. The fifth race, to which Hesiod personally belonged, was the race of "Iron." This race was composed of mortal men and, though they had good mixed in with their pains of labor and sorrow by day and death by night, Zeus eventually destroyed them. The progression from age to age coupled with the final age's inevitable destruction mirror Peacock's assertion that poetry has reached its inevitable decline because society has progressed to a certain extent.