The critical legacy of Irving Babbitt

the long version

"This new study is a discerning examination of the ideas of Irving Babbitt, founder of the intellectual movement known as the New Humanism. An early mentor of T. S. Eliot and a Harvard professor, Babbitt was also a diagnostician of the modern social order, which he believed to be in rapid retreat from a faith in first principles and first causes.". "Babbitt's writings were uncompromising and controversial. His ideas revolved around the ultimate problems of life, literature, and thought and were rooted in and impelled by mural concerns and imperatives. George A Panichas writes with rare sympathy and vision, drawing the reader to a frame of reference that elucidates Babbitt's affinities with his contemporaries, including the religious philosopher Simone Weil, with whom Babbitt shared a grounding in French literary thought, a reverence for the classical tradition, and a fascination with Asian religion and philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.