Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was one of the greatest English poets of all time, becoming the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria&rsquo;s reign. Tennyson&rsquo;s early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt made a list of &ldquo;Immortals&rdquo;, artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, notably including Keats and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for Pre-Raphaelite&rsquo;s paintings. <i>The Lady of Shalott</i> alone was a subject for Rossetti, Hunt, John William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.<br /><i>The Holy Grail</i> is one of the twelve poems included by Tennison in the collection <i>Idylls of the King</i> (1885), entirely inspired by the figure of King Arthur and the Breton cycle and based on the fifteenth-century novels by Sir Thomas Malory. This Idyll is told in flashback by Sir Percivale, who had become a monk and died one summer before the account, to his fellow monk Ambrosius. <i>The Holy Grail</i> is symbolic of the Round Table being broken apart, a key reason for the doom of Camelot.<br />&laquo;And I was lifted up in heart, and thought of all my late-shown prowess in the lists, how my strong lance had beaten down the knights, so many and famous names; and never yet had heaven appeared so blue, nor earth so green, for all my blood danced in me, and I knew that I should light upon the Holy Grail&raquo;.