The Quest of the Absolute ─ Birth and Decline of European Romanticism

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, Holderlin), 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.

"The Quest of the Absolute is the third volume in Louis Dupre's trilogy dealing with the origins and development of modernity and the major cultural currents defining its history. It follows Passage to Modernity (1993) and The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture (2004). This third volume deals with the Romantic movement. Dupre's account is concerned to restore something of the full dimensionalities to Romanticism as a whole, to acknowledge something of the immense intellectual, political, and spiritual ambitions at work in it, without reneging on a reflective critical relation to it." —William Desmond, Catholic University Louvain and Villanova University

Louis Dupre 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).