Tennyson's Camelot: "Idylls of the King" and Its Mediaeval Sources

Tennyson was nearly fifty when he began to write his major Arthurian poem, the Idylls of the King. From his earliest years the legends of King Arthur, "the greatest of all poetical subjects" as he called them, had fascinated and haunted him. As a child he had been familiar with Malory; throughout his life he read all available medieval writing related to thestory of Camelot.