The poem is a musing on a social issue and is not given a concrete sense of place. The only element of setting that’s referenced is the “carpet” (Line 8), which becomes worn down by the passage of many feet over time, perhaps generations. The poem creates a sense of a gathering place where academics are drawn to share ideas — as long as their ideas are all the same. It is easy to see this poem taking place in a traditional university library where little has changed across the centuries and scholars, who fit a certain character type, are examining and re-examining the same traditional literary canon over and over.