Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

How seriously should we take the notion of absolute monarchy during the reign of Louis XIV? Was its excessiveness-reinforced by outlandish artworks and buildings-mere propaganda or satire? Not at all, argues Hall Bjørnstad in this meticulous work of political and cultural history. Bjørnstad revisits the world of seventeenth-century France and the team of ministers, secretaries, artists, and writers surrounding Louis XIV to uncover the logic at work at the heart of the image-making of the Sun King. Bjørnstad looks at some well-known artifacts-the monumental opulence of Versailles, for example, and Charles Le Brun's symbolic paintings depicting the grand exploits of the king, as well as at court histories and the king's secret Mémoires-to argue that these seeming absurdities are driven by a deeper, internal logic: a dream of absolute power that defies modern standards of political rationality. Bjørnstad cautions us not to approach categories such as "royal glory" and "royal exemplarity" anachronistically while also suggesting that they are part of a collective political imaginary that is still at work today.

Despotism --- Despotism. --- Literature. --- Monarchy --- Monarchy. --- Politics and government. --- Power (Social sciences) --- Power (Social sciences). --- History --- Louis --- Le Brun, Charles, --- In literature. --- Portraits. --- 1600-1715. --- France --- France. --- Politics and government --- Empowerment (Social sciences) --- Political power --- Exchange theory (Sociology) --- Political science --- Social sciences --- Sociology --- Consensus (Social sciences) --- Absolutism --- Autocracy --- Tyranny --- Authoritarianism --- Dictatorship --- Totalitarianism --- Lodewijk --- le Roi-Soleil --- Louis le Grand --- de Zonnekoning