Shelley's In Defense of Poetry, when read as a reaction piece to The Four Ages of Poetry, contains a fine rebuttal to Peacock's reductive and pessimistic analysis; that poetry is eternal, outside of time, the instrument of visitant, mystic inspiration. That it "redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man."
While this suggestion, commendably argued and charmingly Romantic, contains beneath its enthusiasm two flaws; one is only in conjunction with Peacock, the other distinct.
Of the latter: Shelley, I think it is reasonable to suggest, overestimates the power of poetry and the nature of the poet. In suggesting that anyone might be a poet and that anything might be poetry, he reduces the value of the truly innovative, the truly transcendent, or the truly good.
Secondly, Peacock does, for his flaws, trace fairly natural patterns within poetry. Barring his assignations of worth, the defined Iron (focus on glorification of earthly), Gold (focus on reminiscence), Silver (less original imitation) and Brass (deliberate return to primitivism) Ages are fairly accurate in both their delineation and cyclicism.
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