"Golden age of Astrea” and "Adam’s gardens of paradise” : the poets of the englightenment on the golden age and paradise

The paper discusses selected poetry from the Enlightenment period on the subject of Biblical paradise and Golden Age images often identifi ed with each other or set side by side (and sometimes close to the utopia concepts of the time). The images are treated in a diverse manner, ambiguously at times. Occasionally, they are symbols of a perfect and blissful reality - e.g. in Franciszek Karpinski’s Szczęście, czyli opisanie raju (Happiness or a Description of Paradise) - but more often than not, due to changes in the outlook on life and new concepts of happiness, they become objects of poetic fun - to mention Mój raj (My Paradise) by Jakub Jasiński, a paraphrase of Voltaire’s Le Mondain - or even derision coupled with affi rmation of paradise ‘in this world’.