The Idylls of the King is a series of twelve narrative poems in blank verse that recount the legend of King Arthur. Though the poems are set in the distant past, many of the ideals set forward are representative of the Victorian age in which Tennyson lived. Individual poems follow the stories of certain knights or other important figures, like Lancelot and Merlin, and the overall arc of the epic tells the story of Arthur's rise to power and his eventual death.