Character & Culture

Essays on East and West

Irving Babbitt, Booker T. Washington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000676143
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Character and Culture by Irving Babbitt is the latest volume in the Library of Conservative Thought. Babbitt was the leader of the twentieth-century intellectual and cultural movement called American Humanism or the New Humanism. More than half a century after his death his intellectual staying power remains undiminished. The qualities that marked Irving Babbitt as a thinker and cultural critic of the first rank are richly represented in Character and Culture. First published togetherin 1940 (under the misleading title Spanish Character), these essays span his scholarly career and cover a wide range of subjects. The diverse topics discussed here-aesthetics, ethics, religion, politics, literature-are illuminated by the same unifying vision of human existence that informs and structures all of Babbitt's writing. Babbitt never took up a subject out of idle curiosity. All of his books and articles grew out of a desire to address certain fundamental questions of life and letters. The essaysin this volume are as worthy of attention now as when they were originally written. Set in then- philosophical and historical context by Claes G. Ryn's new introduction, they are a good place to start for persons who wish to acquaint themselves not only with Babbitt's central ideas but with the scope of his mind and interests. Readers familiar with other books by Babbitt may recognize particular ideas and formulations but will also find much new material to ponder. Ryn's introduction provides a comprehensive look at Irving Babbitt's life, career, writings, and influence. He shows how Babbitt has survived and sustained often harsh criticism from representatives of dominant trends. Ryn describes his writing style as having "a kind of rugged American elegance." The substantial critical introduction also elucidates Babbitt's central ideas in relation to the volume. Character and Culture will be of interest to scholars of literature, philosophers, historians, theologians, and political theorists. The extensive index to all of Babbitt's books, including this one, increases the value of the volume.

Index
To the Collected Works of Irving Babbitt

Index

Entire chapters devoted to one subject are not further analyzed under the principal entry. Bibliographies and bibliographic footnotes are indexed only in so far as they contain critical comment. Fictitious characters are indexed under the name of their creator. Quotations are generally indexed under the name of their author, even when this does not appear in the text.

Symbols

BC: On Being Creative and Other Essays

DH: Dhammapada

DL: Democracy and Leadership

LC: Literature and the American College

MC: The Masters of Modern French Criticism

NL: The New Laokoon

RR: Rousseau and Romanticism

SC: Spanish Character/Character and Culture

I.B.: Irving Babbitt

Abelard, RR 238

Absolute, the, a metaphysical illusion, DL 14, 42-43, 169, RR 18, 371; and the will, DL 175-76; and standards, DL 306, BC xxii-xxx; the Indians, Emerson, Tennyson, and Scherer on, SC 143-44

Academy, the French, and the language, SC 36, 170-82; Johnson and Arnold on an English equivalent, SC 27; the American, possible function, SC 180-82

Acedia, and Romantic melancholy, RR 334; in modern literature, LC 176: a modern failing, BC 66

Acton, Lord, on liberty, DL 184-85; on liberty, equality, and terrorism, DL 127; on tyranny of ancient state, DL 297 n.; on Dark Ages, DL 178; on Machiavelli and Bacon, DL 94; on Rousseau, DL 2, SC 225

Adams, Charles Francis, on Montaigne and Cicero, LC 112

Adams, Henry, and Puritanism, DL 252 n.; also, DL 231 n.

Adams, Herbert B., DL 305 n.

Adams, James Truslow, on the 'mucker pose,' SC 231

Adams, John, on reason vs. reasoning, MC 244, SC 37; on absolute sovereignty, DL v; 306, 335

Adams, John Quincy, on Marshall and Jefferson, DL 248

Addison, makes wit respectable, BC 43; and confusion of the

arts, NL 32; on imagination, RR 12, DL 13, BC 82, 176; on genius and imitation, RR 35, 37, 38; on literary gossip, MC 157; on Marlborough, RR 202 n.; on criticism, SC 23; influence in Germany, SC 24; on English oddity, SC 27; compared with La Bruyère, SC 29, 41

Aeschylus, religious depth, SC 93-94; conception of fate, RR 190; natural setting of Prometheus, RR 292; compared with Shelley, RR 359; and Sainte-Beuve, MC 166

Aesthetics, and ethics, RR 43-45, 131-33, 203-08, 238, 289, 294, BC 113; science of, its evolution and value, NL 217, BC 134-86 passim; German weakness for, SC 36-37; cf. Beauty, Art

Agathon, on Sorbonne, MC 385 n.

Akenside, and deism, BC 41

Alarcón, on old and new Spain, SC 13

Albany, Countess of, and La Bruyère, MC 110

Aldrich, E. A., on Beattie and Wordsworth, BC 45 n.

Alexander the Great, Saint-Evremond on, DL 139; also MC 215, SC 161

Alexandrian age, its primitivism, RR 77; romance and realism in, RR 104 n.

Allegory, i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prefatory Note
• INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION
• LIGHTS AND SHADES OF SPANISH CHARACTER
• ARE THE ENGLISH CRITICAL?
• MATTHEW ARNOLD
• CROCE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE FLUX
• PASCAL
• RACINE AND THE ANTI-ROMANTIC REACTION
• THE BICENTENARY OF DIDEROT
• GEORGE SAND AND FLAUBERT
• A CENTURY OF INDIAN EPIGRAMS
• INTERPRETING INDIA TO THE WEST
• THE PROBLEM OF STYLE IN A DEMOCRACY
• HUMANIST AND SPECIALIST
• PRESIDENT ELIOT AND AMERICAN EDUCATION
• WHAT I BELIEVE: ROUSSEAU AND RELIGION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PUBLICATIONS OF IRVING BABBITT
• INDEX TO THE COLLECTED WORKS OF IRVING BABBITT