The nostalgic palimpsests : golden age and its intricacies in Latin poetry from the late Republic to the early empire

The idea of the golden age is perennial in Latin poetry, but what can goldenness tell us about the interaction between poetry and its historical context? And how does poetic language represent the golden age to the audience? Focussing on literary representations of the golden age in Latin poetry from the late Republic to the early empire—a period when the golden age receives extensive attention and at the same time, it marks high achievements of Latin literature—I argue that the golden age forms a dynamic discourse concerning temporalities and a critical appraisal of the evolving political realities. This thesis focuses on different authors, and each chapter addresses a specific aspect of the representation of the golden age. It starts with tensions between primitivism and progressivism in Lucretius’ Kulturentstehungslehre and then examines the layered ambivalence in Catullus 64. After that, two chapters are dedicated to Vergil: I first consider the conflicting visions of the golden age in the Eclogues and the Georgics and then demonstrate that the contestatory design in the Aeneid structurally and thematically questions the cost of the political golden age. With a key focus on circular temporality, my reading of Horace’s golden age examines different power dynamics as shown by the congestion of the golden age into lyric poetry. And eventually, a dissociative reading of the golden age in Ovid considers how the golden age is problematised. Across these texts, the mollitia-duritia contrast stands out as a thematised framework of contemplation. Along the lines of literary palimpsest, I argue that the golden age in Latin authors constantly gives new meaning to existing motifs by referring to their contemporaneous political situations, and that golden age as a discourse is always in close proximity to other important social or political discussions.