Setting
The books travel throughout Early Modern Europe between the Restoration Stuart Monarchy until the beginning of the 18th century. Though most of the focus is in Europe, the adventures of one character, Jack Shaftoe, do take him throughout the world and the fledgling British colonies in North America are important to another (Daniel Waterhouse). Quicksilver takes place mainly in the years between the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in England (1660) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Confusion follows Quicksilver without temporal interruption, but ranges geographically from Europe and the Mediterranean through India to Manila, Japan, and Mexico. The System of the World takes place principally in London in 1714, about ten years after the events of The Confusion.
Read more about this topic: The Baroque Cycle
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“Dandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.... Dandyism is a setting sun; like the declining star, it is magnificent, without heat and full of melancholy. But alas! the rising tide of democracy, which spreads everywhere and reduces everything to the same level, is daily carrying away these last champions of human pride, and submerging, in the waters of oblivion, the last traces of these remarkable myrmidons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A fit abode for a poet. Stage setting at least correct.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)