The King (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Donald Barthelme
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The World War II period
- Setting: King Arthur’s court
- Principal Characters: King Arthur, Guinevere, Launcelot, Mordred, Walter The Penniless, The Blue Knight, The Yellow Knight, The Brown Knight, The Black Knight
- Genres: Long fiction, Alternate history
- Subjects: 1940’s, World War II, Kings, queens, or royalty, Legends, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, Nazism or Nazis, Great Britain, Knights or knighthood
- Locales: England, Great Britain
Donald Barthelme, one of the most important American fiction writers of the postwar period, died in July, 1989, at the age of fifty-eight. The author of fifteen books—ten short-story collections, four novels, and an award-winning children’s book—Barthelme was not only one of the masters of the “postmodern” style but arguably one of its originators, who seemed to burst on the scene in the early 1960’s with his talent fully developed. His first published collection of stories, Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964), contains some of his most radical experiments with the collage...
[The entire page is 2098 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
