Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The biology of ageing
- 3 Fostering resilience, promoting health and preventing disease in older adults
- 4 Ageing and health
- 5 Social care and older people
- 6 Cognitive processes and ageing
- 7 The psychology of atypical ageing
- 8 Sociological perspectives on ageing
- 9 Retirement
- 10 Sexuality and ageing
- 11 Policies on ageing
- 12 Cross-cultural differences in ageing
- 13 Technology and ageing
- 14 Literary portrayals of ageing
- 15 Palliative care for older adults
- 16 Conclusions
- Index
- References
14 - Literary portrayals of ageing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The biology of ageing
- 3 Fostering resilience, promoting health and preventing disease in older adults
- 4 Ageing and health
- 5 Social care and older people
- 6 Cognitive processes and ageing
- 7 The psychology of atypical ageing
- 8 Sociological perspectives on ageing
- 9 Retirement
- 10 Sexuality and ageing
- 11 Policies on ageing
- 12 Cross-cultural differences in ageing
- 13 Technology and ageing
- 14 Literary portrayals of ageing
- 15 Palliative care for older adults
- 16 Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
OVERVIEW
This chapter examines the artistic representations of ageing and old age, concentrating upon literary portrayals. The subject is examined through key topics, including old age as motif and metaphor, changing representations of ageing in post-1970s fiction, creativity and the life course, life writing, gender and ageing, anthologies, theorizing age, and new directions in the literature of ageing.
Artistic representations of older people both shape and have the potential to counter our ideas about age and ageing. Old age may be conceived of as ‘Other’ in youth-obsessed Western culture, ‘a foreign country with an unknown language’ in May Sarton's suggestive phrase (1973, p. 17), but it is an/other country in which most people will, barring accidents, eventually come to live. A novel, poem, play, painting or photograph, film or television series, or, less obviously, a piece of music may allow us imaginatively to engage with the fact of our own ageing. It may also help us to recognize the subjectivity of those who are already ‘older’ (since age is often understood relationally) and to understand the ways in which age and ageing are culturally constructed.
In her still neglected study, Old Age (1972, first published as La Vieillesse and translated as The Coming of Age in the USA), Simone de Beauvoir set out to break the ‘conspiracy of silence’ around what she called this ‘forbidden subject’ (1972, p. 21).
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- An Introduction to Gerontology , pp. 389 - 415Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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