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Absolutism

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Absolutism is the belief in fixed, universal truths or principles that are unchanging. It often contrasts with relativism or contextual understanding.

Detailed Definition
In philosophy, absolutism asserts that certain truths, values, or moral laws hold universally regardless of context. In poetry, it appears in works that affirm eternal truths—such as love, justice, or divinity—often expressed through declarative tones and symbolic imagery. Poets may embrace or challenge absolutism, using it to explore tensions between certainty and doubt, particularly in religious or metaphysical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Blake's prophetic books attack absolutism both politically and metaphysically, presenting Urizen as a god-figure whose imposition of absolute law crushes human creative freedom; Milton's Satan in "Paradise Lost" can be read as a critique of divine absolutism, raising questions about whether absolute authority — even God's — can be philosophically justified; A contemporary poet responding to authoritarian regimes might invoke absolutism to interrogate the claim that any single ideology holds complete and unchallengeable truth; Shelley's "Ozymandias" uses the ruined statue to dramatize the collapse of political absolutism, showing how claims to absolute power crumble against the absolutism of time itself; Donne's religious poetry wrestles with theological absolutism — the absolute sovereignty of God — and the human soul's struggle to submit fully to that power; Adrienne Rich's political poems challenge the absolutism embedded in patriarchal discourse, arguing that no single perspective holds absolute authority over truth or experience
Additional Notes
Absolutism in philosophy spans metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Metaphysically, it holds that certain truths hold universally and independently of context (Plato's Forms are an early example). Ethically, moral absolutism (associated with Kant's categorical imperative) holds that some actions are always right or wrong regardless of consequences. Politically, absolutism refers to the concentration of power in a single authority without checks. For poets, absolutism provides both a target (Blake's Urizen as the absolute law-giver) and a philosophical challenge: can any truth, including aesthetic truth, claim absolute status? The tension between absolutism and relativism is productive for poetry that interrogates the grounds of value. Related terms: universalism, relativism, dogmatism, the categorical imperative, moral realism.
Also Known As
undivided sovereignty total authority monarchical power
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