The Dream of Absolutism

What was absolutism, and how did it work? What was the function of the ostentatious display surrounding Louis XIV at Versailles? What is gained-and what is lost-by approaching such expressions of absolutism as propaganda, as present-day scholars tend to do? In this sweeping reconsideration of absolutist culture, Hall Bjornstad argues that the exuberance of Louis XIV's reign was not top-down propaganda in any modern sense, but rather a dream dreamt collectively, by king, court, image-makers, and nation alike. Bjornstad explores this dream through a sustained close analysis of a corpus of absolutist artifacts, ranging from Charles Le Brun's famous paintings in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles via the king's secret Memoires to two little-known particularly extravagant verbal and textual celebrations of the king. The dream of absolutism, Bjornstad concludes, lives at the intersection of politics and aesthetics. It is the carrier of a force that emerges as a glorious image; a participatory emotional reality that requires reality to conform to it. It is a dream, finally, that still shapes our collective political imaginary today.