Overview

This eagerly awaited study brings to completion Louis Dupre's planned trilogy on European culture during the modern epoch. Demonstrating remarkable erudition and sweeping breadth, The Quest of the Absolute analyzes Romanticism as a unique cultural phenomenon and a spiritual revolution. Dupre philosophically reflects on its attempts to recapture the past and transform the present in a movement that is partly a return to premodern culture and partly a violent protest against it. Following an introduction on the historical origins of the Romantic Movement, Dupre examines the principal Romantic poets of England (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats), Germany (Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Hoelderlin), and France (Lamartine, de Vigny, Hugo), all of whom, from different perspectives, pursued an absolute ideal. In the chapters of the second part, he concentrates on the critical principles of Romantic aesthetics, the Romantic image of the person as reflected in the novel, and Romantic ethical and political theories. In the chapters of the third, more speculative, part, he investigates the comprehensive syntheses of romantic thought in history, philosophy, and theology. The Quest of the Absolute is an important work both as the culmination of Dupre's ongoing project and as a classic in its own right. The book will meet the expectations of the specialist as well as appeal to more general readers with philosophical, cultural, and religious interests.

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9780268026165

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Reviews

With this volume, Dupr completes a trilogy that began with Passage to Modernity (1993) and proceeded with The Enlightenment and Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture. . . . In spite of its subtitle, this volume is more than an intellectual history; it is a new synthesis of a diverse complement of beliefs and works. Dupr 's vision affirms the coherence of romanticism by emphasizing its persistent quest for an unrealizable ideal. . . . The book is breathtaking in its erudition and thoughtful in its assertions. --Choice

In this extraordinarily comprehensive and penetrating study, the capstone to a great scholarly career, Louis Dupre undertakes nothing less than a grand synthesis of Romantic thought; yet the book is beautifully written and a joy to read. Discussions of English, French, and German poetry and fiction are seamlessly linked to systematic analyses of Romantic aesthetics, psychology, and ethics, as well as such other aspects of Romantic thought as the new religious and historical conceptions that emerge in the period. The Quest of the Absolute is a brilliant, indeed indispensable, book, one that demonstrates, more clearly than any previous study, why Romanticism is still relevant to the struggles that confront us in the twenty-first century. --Henry Weinfield, University of Notre Dame With this volume, Dupre completes a trilogy that began with Passage to Modernity (1993) and proceeded with The Enlightenment and Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture. . . . In spite of its subtitle, this volume is more than an intellectual history; it is a new synthesis of a diverse complement of beliefs and works. Dupre's vision affirms the coherence of romanticism by emphasizing its persistent quest for an unrealizable ideal. . . . The book is breathtaking in its erudition and thoughtful in its assertions. --Choice

With this volume, Dupre completes a trilogy that began with Passage to Modernity (1993) and proceeded with The Enlightenment and Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture. . . . In spite of its subtitle, this volume is more than an intellectual history; it is a new synthesis of a diverse complement of beliefs and works. Dupre's vision affirms the coherence of romanticism by emphasizing its persistent quest for an unrealizable ideal. . . . The book is breathtaking in its erudition and thoughtful in its assertions. --Choice

Author Information

Louis Dupré is T. Lawrason Riggs Professor Emeritus in the Philosophy of Religion at Yale University. He has published numerous books and articles, including Religion and the Rise of Modern Culture (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).

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