Irving Babbitt

Irving Babbitt (born Aug. 2, 1865, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.—died July 15, 1933, Cambridge, Mass.) was an American critic and teacher, leader of the movement in literary criticism known as the “New Humanism,” or Neohumanism.

Babbitt was educated at Harvard University and at the Sorbonne in Paris and taught French and comparative literature at Harvard from 1894 until his death.

A vigorous teacher, lecturer, and essayist, Babbitt was the unrestrained foe of Romanticism and its offshoots, Realism and Naturalism; instead, he championed the classical virtues of restraint and moderation. His early followers included T.S. Eliot and George Santayana, who later criticized him; his major opponent was H.L. Mencken.

Babbitt extended his views beyond literary criticism: Literature and the American College (1908) opposes vocationalism in education and calls for a return to the study of classical literatures; The New Laokoön (1910) deplores the confusion in the arts created by Romanticism; Rousseau and Romanticism (1919) criticizes the effects of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thought in the 20th century; Democracy and Leadership (1924) studies social and political problems; On Being Creative (1932) compares the Romantic concept of spontaneity adversely with classic theories of imitation.