The Habit of Art

Download or read book The Habit of Art written by Alan Bennett and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W. H. Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first in twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, among others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett's new play is as much about the theater as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion's spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.