Buying this book was a mistake. I thought the "myth of the golden age" referred to antiquity, but the author actually discusses poetic mythology. He presents a jumbled collection of poetry weakly tied together by a common subject: fantastic paradises of various kinds. He stretches his gallery of authors from Plato to Freud, so his idea of "the Renaissance" is quite fluid. I have absolutely no interest in poetry so I laid this book to rest after a quick browse.