Fabricatingthe Glory of the “Sun King”： The Divine Kingshipand the Shaping of Nation―State in Th.docVIP

Fabricatingthe Glory of the “Sun King”： The Divine Kingshipand the Shaping of Nation―State in Th （Southwest Nationalities Research Academy， Southwest University for Nationalities， Chengdu，610041，Sichuan，China） JOURNAL OF ETHNOLOGY， VOL. 5， NO.4， 17-21， 2015 （CN51-1731/C， in Chinese） DOI：10.3969/j.issn.1674-9391.2015.04.03 Abstract： Louis XIV （September 1638―September 1715）， known as Louis the Great or the Sun King， was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1643 until his death. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history. As a legendary king in European history， Louis XIV did not expect the Enlightenment， but instead， he experienced the beginning period of the concept of “nation”. During his entire life， the public image of Louis XIV was represented in different forms and occasions： in paintings and engravings， medals and sculptures， plays， ballets， and operas.It is the place of Louis XIV in the collective imagination that Burke focuses on.All these contemporary representations of Louis XIV is the material for Peter Burke to show how the making of a royal image illuminates the relationship between art and power， between fabricating a king and the rising up of nationalism. Burke stresses that during Louis XIVs tenure， by introducing the idea of equality and freedom， the concept of “nation” began to undermine the legitimacy of kingship characterized by oracle and hierarchy. While Benedict Anderson believes that the history of the nation-state is the history of imagination and a fixing of ethnic borders， and that a nation is a imagined political community， Burke illustrates another way for the forming of national identity： by fabricating a hero， an exemplary and a center. Therefore， The Fabrication of Louis XIV provides an inspiring perspective to rethink the rise of nationalism and a way of creating identity. I. Louis XIV： A Cultural Historians Account Peter Burke is one of the mo