Peter Wake is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas.

"Wake's book is provocative and helpful because it sharpens appreciation of the complexity of the material in the ETW; it brings into focus tensions and contradictions in the texts. It contributes to the recognition of the subtlety and enduring importance of this early work."—Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"Elegant. Combines the virtues of close reading of extraordinary subtlety with a wide-angle scope not only to Hegel's work as a whole, but also to the enduring value of the early work."—Cyril J. O'Regan, University of Notre Dame

• AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Monotheism of Reason and the Heart, Polytheism of the Imagination and Art Part I. Positivity and the Concrete Idea of Freedom 1. Positivity and Historical Reversal2. On ExpansionPart II. The Spirit of Withdrawal3. The Idea of Freedom as Independence4. Withdrawal and Exile5. Dialectic of LoveConclusion: Comedy, Subjectivity, and the NegativeNotesBibliographyIndex