SOURCE: "Racine and the Anti-Romantic Reaction," in Spanish Character, and Other Essays, Frederick Manchester, Rachel Giese, William F. Giese, eds., Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940, pp. 89-104.

With Paul Elmer More, Babbitt was one of the founder of the New Humanism (or neo-humanism) movement which arose during the twentieth century's second decade. The New Humanists were moralists who adhered to traditional conservative values in reaction to an age of scientific and artistic self-expression. In regard to literature, they believed that the aesthetic qualities of a work of art should be subordinate to its moral and ethical purpose. They were particularly opposed to Naturalism, which they believed accentuated the animal nature of humans, and to any literature, such as Romanticism, that broke with established classical tradition. In the following excerpt from a review which originally appeared in the Nation in 1909, Babbitt explores Racine's accomplishment as an heir of the neoclassical tradition...