Augustan age
Augustan age,a term derived from the period of literary eminence under the Roman Emperor Augustus ( 27 BC – AD 14 ) during which Virgil , Horace , and Ovid flourished. In English literature it is generally taken to refer to the early and mid-18th cent., though the earliest usages date back to the reign of Charles II . Augustan writers (such as Pope , Addison , Swift , and Steele ) greatly admired their Roman counterparts, imitated their works, and themselves frequently drew parallels between the two ages. Goldsmith , in The Bee, in an ‘Account of the Augustan Age of England’ ( 1759 ), identifies it with the reign of Queen Anne , and the era of Congreve , Prior , and Bolingbroke . See also neo-classicism . See H. Weinbrot , Augustus Caesar in ‘Augustan’ England ( 1978 ).
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