t more cheered them than their meats and wine,
Was wise instruction and discourse divine
From Godlike Arthur's mouth."

There is no need, in taking a summary view of Tennyson's "Idylls," to go
into the question of sources, or to inquire whether Arthur was a
historical chief of North Wales, or whether he signified the Great Bear
(Arcturus) in Celtic mythology, and his Round Table the circle described
by that constellation about the pole star.[28] Tennyson went no farther
back for his authority than Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte Darthur," printed
by Caxton in 1485, a compilation principally from old French Round Table
romances. This was the final mediaeval shape of the story in English.
It is somewhat wandering and prolix as to method, but written in
delightful prose. The story of "Enid," however (under its various titles
and arrangements in successive editions), he took from Lady Charlotte
Guest's translation of the Welsh "Mabinogion" (1838-49).

Before deciding upon the heroic blank verse and a loosely epic form, as
most fitting for his purpose, Tennyson had retold passages of Arthurian
romance in the ballad manner and in various shapes of riming stanza. The
first of these was "The Lady of Shalott" (1832), identical in subject
with the later idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine," but fanciful and even
allegorical in treatment. Shalott is from Ascalot, a variant of Astolat,
in the old _metrical_ romance--not Malory's--of the "Morte Arthur." The
fairy lady, who sees all passing sights in her mirror and weaves them
into her magic web, has been interpreted as a symbol of art, which has to
do properly only with the reflection of life. When the figure of
Lancelot is cast upon the glass, a personal emotion is brought into her
life which is fatal to her art. She is "sick of shadows," and looks
through her window at the substance. Then her mirror cracks from side to
side and the curse is come upon her. Other experiments of the same kind
were "Sir Galahad" and "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinivere" (both in 1842).
The beauty of all these ballad beginnings is such that one is hardly
reconciled to the loss of so much romantic music, even by the noble blank
verse and the ampler narrative method which the poet finally adopted.
They stand related to the "Idylls" very much as Morris' "Defence of
Guenevere" stands to his "Earthly Paradise."

Thoroughly romantic in content, the "Idylls of the King" are classical in
form. They may be c