The historical setting of the poem is early medieval, both in form (using Germanic verse) and in content, showing Arthur as a Migration period British military leader fighting the Saxon invasion.

[...] In his own Arthurian poem [Tolkien] did not touch on the Grail but began an individual rendering of the Morte d'Arthur, in which the king and Gawain go to war in 'Saxon lands' but are summoned home by news of Mordred's treachery.

"[5] Carpenter cited a passage from the poem, to make the point that it is a rare instance in Tolkien's writings where sexual desire is given explicit literary treatment, in this case Mordred's "unsated passion" for Guinever:[5] His bed was barren       there black phantoms of desire unsated       and savage fury in his brain had brooded       till bleak morning Hilary Dorsch Wong, reviewing the work for the Washington Independent Review of Books, describes the poem as "accessible, with a driving plot and engaging use of language.

She notes, for example, that while he shows which details his father took from each of the different medieval versions of the story, he "fails to draw conclusions from this information, or to make wider arguments about Tolkien's poem from it.

[8] She similarly found the last chapter on the poem's evolution dull, with lengthy quotations illustrating the most minor of textual differences between drafts, but "few useful conclusions".

Missing, too, are the magical elements, the wizard Merlin, the enchantress Morgan le Fay, the Holy Grail, the spiritual quest, the dream, the triumphant return home.

[3] Instead, Tolkien chooses tragedy; Flieger comments that the theme of "loss and doom" held a special attraction for him, as seen in his poem of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, or in the repeated attention he gave to the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar.