Now that I Am So Miserable: Experiences and Representations of Old Age in Sixteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

Old age in the sixteenth century was caricaturized as a painful experience that could only offer mental and physical suffering, and these narratives of unlucky elders had an important function in society. By using examples of uncomfortable old age, often through fictional or anecdotal accounts, sixteenth-century moralists and writers could warn their younger audiences of what awaited them if they lived carelessly in their youth. This was compounded by the few medical treatments available to treat the conditions of old age. Physicians in the sixteenth century diagnosed old age as an incurable condition, and the development of gerontological medicine was slow growing as doctors made advancements in understanding the aging body. This is apparent in the ways in which sixteenth century elders wrote about their own lives: few, if any, spoke positively about their experiences as elders and instead focused their autobiographical texts on their youthful exploits. My dissertation shows the overwhelmingly negative language associated with old age: in medical treatises, in popular plays and poems, and even in the language of elders themselves. But that did not make old age a misery for everyone above the age of sixty in the sixteenth century. The relative silence from those who experienced a “good old age” was because there was no public function in this sort of positive conversation.