The group as a whole belongs to that inconsiderable portion of his output which one cannot accept as of serious artistic consequence.

With the "Lancelot and Elaine" (op.
25), however, one comes upon a work of the grade of the "Hamlet and Ophelia" music.

MacDowell had a peculiar affinity for the spirit of the Arthurian tales, and he was happy in whatever musical transmutation of them he attempted.

This tone-poem is, as he avows, "after Tennyson." The work follows consistently the larger action of the poem, and musical equivalents are sought and found for such crucial incidents as the meeting with Elaine, the tournament, Lancelot's downfall, his return to the court and the interview with Guinevere, the apparition of the funeral barge, and the soliloquy of Lancelot by the river bank.

The work is dramatically conceived.