Irving Babbitt

Irving Babbitt was an influential American academic and literary critic, best known as the intellectual founder of the New Humanism movement in the early 20th century. A professor of French literature at Harvard University for over four decades, he was a staunch critic of romanticism and naturalism, advocating instead for a return to classical principles of restraint, discipline, and ethical will. His thought, articulated in polemical works like Literature and the American College and Rousseau and Romanticism, positioned him as a leading conservative voice against the prevailing progressivism and modernism of his era, influencing a generation of scholars, writers, and public intellectuals.

Life and career

Irving Babbitt was born in Dayton, Ohio, and spent part of his youth in New York City before his family settled in Cincinnati. He entered Harvard University in 1885, where he studied under scholars like Barrett Wendell and Charles Eliot Norton, graduating in 1889. After teaching Classics at the University of Montana and studying Sanskrit and Pali texts in Paris, he returned to Harvard University in 1894 as an instructor, eventually becoming a full professor of French literature in 1912. He remained at Harvard University for his entire career, teaching until his death in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1933. His colleagues and intellectual adversaries at Harvard University included George Santayana and William James, and he mentored a significant number of students, most notably the poet and critic T.S. Eliot, who was deeply affected by his ideas despite later disagreements.

New Humanism

Babbitt founded the New Humanism movement as a philosophical and literary critique of modern trends he deemed destructive. He sharply opposed Rousseau and the romanticism that followed, which he believed elevated expansive emotion and individual impulse over ethical discipline. Similarly, he rejected naturalism, as practiced by writers like Émile Zola, for its deterministic view of human nature. Instead, Babbitt’s New Humanism championed the classical and Renaissance humanist tradition, emphasizing the necessity of an “inner check” or “higher will” to balance human desires. He argued this ethical imperative, found in thinkers from Aristotle to Buddhist philosophy, was essential for both individual character and a healthy civilization, positioning it against the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill and the scientific materialism of the age.

Major works and ideas

Babbitt’s central ideas were systematically developed in a series of major critical works. His first important book, Literature and the American College (1908), attacked the elective system pioneered by Charles William Eliot and lamented the decline of a unified humanistic curriculum. In The New Laokoön (1910), he critiqued the Romantic confusion of artistic genres. His most famous work, Rousseau and Romanticism (1919), presented a comprehensive historical indictment of Rousseau’s influence, linking it to modern egotism and ethical disorder. In Democracy and Leadership (1924), he applied his humanistic principles to politics, arguing for an “aristocratic” standard of ethical leadership within democratic frameworks, criticizing both pure majoritarianism and Marxism. His final work, On Being Creative (1932), further contrasted classical imitation with Romantic notions of originality.

Influence and legacy

Babbitt’s influence was profound on a circle of scholars, critics, and writers who formed the core of the New Humanism movement, including his Harvard colleague Paul Elmer More. His ideas significantly shaped the early thought of T.S. Eliot, who credited Babbitt with defining his opposition to romanticism, though Eliot later turned toward Anglo-Catholicism. Other figures influenced by Babbitt include the scholar Norman Foerster, the critic Stuart Pratt Sherman (initially), and the conservative thinker Russell Kirk. His emphasis on tradition, hierarchy, and moral discipline provided intellectual groundwork for later American conservatism and informed debates about liberal education within institutions like the University of Chicago and among participants in the Great Books programs.

Criticism and controversy

Babbitt was a deeply polarizing figure who attracted vigorous criticism from many quarters. Progressive and modernist critics, including H.L. Mencken, who famously derided him, saw his New Humanism as elitist, reactionary, and life-denying. The literary left, including figures like Edmund Wilson and Sinclair Lewis, attacked his philosophy as a puritanical attack on modern creativity and social reform. A famous 1930 symposium in the book Humanism and America featured defenses by his followers but was met with a critical rebuttal in The Critique of Humanism, with contributions from Allen Tate and Kenneth Burke. Even admirers like T.S. Eliot ultimately found his philosophy too secular and rationalistic, lacking the dimension of divine grace found in Christianity. His debates with colleagues like William James over pragmatism highlighted the fundamental divide between his ethical absolutism and the prevailing philosophical currents of his time.

Category:American literary critics Category:Harvard University faculty Category:1865 births Category:1933 deaths