Literary Devices in The Once and Future King
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
We're not meant to think that this book takes place in the real England. For one, England wasn't ever known as Gramarye. Secondly, there's no such thing as Questing Beasts, or demons fathering time...
Narrator Point of View
We're never told the name of the text's omniscient narrator. But this guy's all-powerful and all seeing. He's able to see into the thoughts of all characters, and has both past and future knowledge...
Genre
White's novels cross over multiple genres. We're predominantly in the realm of fantasy—Arthurian fantasy to be exact. This means that many of the major elements of the author's source material (l...
Tone
We're in for Some Serious HistoryFor significant chunks of the novels, White defaults to a serious tone that aspires to historical writing. The narrator's just telling the story of King Arthur, the...
Writing Style
The Sword in the Stone is usually considered a great work of YA fiction (even if the other three books in the quartet get really adult really fast), but don't think White's going to talk down to th...
What's Up With the Title?
The Once and Future King comes from what was thought to be inscribed in Latin (fancy schmancy!) on Arthur's grave upon his death: Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rexque futurus (Here lies Arthur, th...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
EPIGRAPH: We see not one, not two, not three, but no less than four epigraphs. Check them out.Since this is actually four separate novels brought together as one, there are four epigraphs.She is no...
What's Up With the Ending?
The book ends with a mature (read: old) King Arthur hanging out in his royal pavilion on the battlefield the night before he's due to engage with Mordred in The Final Battle. He's doing some heavy-...
Tough-o-Meter
Okay, the obvious thing here is the length. The Once and Future King is actually four separate novels that make up the cohesive whole story of Arthur, Guenever, and the fate of the fabled knights o...
Plot Analysis
Since we're dealing with a tetralogy of novels, there's one big story arc that follows the typical plot structure, but each book also has its very own crises and turning points. They Don't Call It...
Trivia
Are the Boy Scouts a type of "Round Table Lite"? You decide. Check out how Lord Baden-Powell (whom White namedrops a few times), the founder of the Boy Scouts, modeled his new organization after Ar...
Steaminess Rating
Sex is of frequent concern here in The Once and Future King. Let's face it: one of the central plot lines involves an affair between a married woman (Guen) and her husband's bestie (Lance). Aside f...
Allusions
Summa Logicales (S.1.1, S.5.14, S.9.92)Aristotle, Organon (S.1.1, S.5.14)Jacob (S.2.9): biblical patriarch.Athene (S.3.84)Archimedes (S.3.33)Aristotle (S.4.17, S.17.44)Hecate (S.4.17): Greek goddes...