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Paradox
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The Once and Future King is set in about the 14th century in a fictionalized version of England that White renames Gramarye. "Gramarye" is a Middle English word meaning "the occult, sorcery, magic"; its more neutral sense of "knowledge" developed into the present-day English word "grammar." Arthur, according to best guesses from historians, is supposed to have lived somewhere between the fifth and ninth centuries. But White's Gramarye, and the character of Arthur who rules it, is a recreation of Britain soon after the Norman Invasion in 1066.
The version of Arthur in the novel is portrayed as Anglo-Norman, with ancestry from the invading French; historians estimate that any real Arthur was surely a native of Britain. Indeed, White's Gramarye is intentionally quite fictional. It contains various magical beasts and supernatural happenings. White is also clear that the monarchs and nobles in the novel are "mythical," inspired by figures who may have been historically real but are clearly fictional.
The book can also be said to take place, in a different way, just after World War II. The narrator self-consciously tells the story of Arthur from the perspective of a world recovering from the war. Within the book, Merlyn is also familiar with this time period and discusses the war on multiple occasions, particularly how Arthur can avoid similar destruction in his day. The book contains two stories: a narrator (perhaps White himself) attempting to retell Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in the aftermath of the war, and Wart growing up to become King Arthur.
