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Personification
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:
In Grendel, Gardner assumes that the reader is familiar with the setting from the novel's source poem, Beowulf. The novel, like the original poem, takes place in Denmark; the palace of Heorot is believed to have been located in what is now the small town of Lejre on the northern coast of the island of Zealand, about 20 miles west of Copenhagen. However, Grendel himself never refers to the setting of the novel as "Denmark" or any such human place-name; save for the connection to the original poem, Grendel's physical setting is left vague. Historically, the events of Beowulf (and thus Grendel) likely took place sometime in the fifth or sixth centuries C.E. At this time, Scandinavia was still ruled by a collection of small kingdoms, and Christianity was just starting to take hold in northern Europe.
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