1. The early education that Wart receives from Merlyn is intended to make him self-reliant and more aware of nature. Some of the terms that White uses seem to come from the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Read Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" (1841) and compare the ideas found in that essay with White's ideas of education.

2. White relies heavily on the Greek concept of tragedy, in which a great person is destroyed by a character flaw or a mistake made in the past. One of the most important such tragedies is Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Read this tragedy and compare it with White's Once and Future King. Note the similarities and differences in the characters of Oedipus and Arthur.

3. The Hindu concept of karma states that whatever you do—good or bad— sets events in motion that will determine what will happen...