The Habit of Being (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Flannery O’Connor
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Letters
- Time of Work: 1948-1964
- Setting: Saratoga Springs and New York City, New York; Connecticut; and Milledgeville, Georgia
- Principal Characters: Flannery O’Connor, Regina Cline O’Connor, Sally, Elizabeth McKee, Caroline Gordon Tate, Robert Giroux, “A”, Maryat Lee, Katherine Anne Porter, Walker Percy, J. F. Powers, John Hawkes, Elizabeth Lowell, Robert Lowell,
- Genres: Nonfiction, Letters
- Subjects: Current events, Philosophy or philosophers, Politics, South or Southerners, Authors or writers, Literature, Religion, Rural or country life, Writing, Farms, farmers, or farming, Letter writing, Creative process, Sick persons, Catholics or Catholic Church, Diseases, Biography, Thought or thinking
- Locales: New York, NY, Connecticut, Milledgeville, GA, Saratoga Springs, NY
Form and Content
The title The Habit of Being alludes to “the habit of art,” a concept that Flannery O’Connor admired in the writings of philosopher Jacques Maritain. Sally Fitzgerald, the editor of this collection of O’Connor’s letters, explains in her introduction that “habit” refers not to mere mechanical routine, but to an attitude of mind; hence, the habit of art allows an artist to sharpen intellectual activity so that art becomes a virtue of the intellect. As O’Connor consciously worked to attain this quality in her writing, she acquired a...
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