We have synthesized a homologous series of soluble, linearly conjugated oligomers and related polymers using molybdenum alkylidene catalysts. We have developed HPLC procedures to isolate the oligomers according to their chain lengths and have obtained the absorption spectra of the purified oligomers in room temperature solutions and in 77 K glasses. The oligomer absorption spectra are structured and remarkably similar to those of simple polyenes with comparable numbers of conjugated double bonds (N). Furthermore, the electronic origins of the low-energy, strongly allowed 1(1)A(g)(-) --> 1(1)Bu(+) transitions follow the E(0-0) = A + B/N behavior previously noted in simple polyenes and carotenoids. Extrapolation of data for oligomers with N = 3-15 suggests E(0-0) approximate to 14 000 cm(-1) (lambda approximate to 700 nm) in the long polyene limit. The oligomer spectra exhibit modest red shifts on cooling, suggesting minimal conformational disorder in the room temperature samples. In contrast, the absorption spectrum of the longest soluble polymer (N > 100) in this series undergoes a significant red shift and sharpening upon cooling from 300 to 77 K. This indicates that the room temperature polymer is disordered due to relatively low thermal barriers for torsional motion about carbon-carbon single bonds. Unlike the longer oligomers, the low-temperature absorption of the polymer shows well-defined vibronic structure. The polymerization reactions lead to a distribution of conjugation lengths in the unpurified polymer sample. However, the vibronically resolved, red-shifted absorption at low temperature (A(0-0) = 630 nm) indicates that this distribution is dominated by species with very long conjugation lengths. The resolution of the low-temperature spectrum argues that the absorption is due to the superposition of almost identical 1(1)Ag(-) --> 1(1)B(u)(+) spectra and that all conjugated segments in this sample absorb near the asymptotic limit (1/N approximate to 0).