Sullivan's biographers and scholars of his work have been unanimous in censuring Tennyson's text. Gervase Hughes wrote, "How did the author of "The Idylls of the King" come to put his name to such puerile rubbish?" Arthur Jacobs called the piece "perhaps the oddest of all the stage works which was invited to undertake." Percy Young scoffed, "Devoid of any kind of merit whatsoever." But some of them did not warmly review Sullivan's score either: "One of Sullivan's lamest... resourceless in magic" (Young); "[not even one memorable number" (Jacobs). Recent critics, however, have praised Sullivan's contribution.