The Sole Remark Likely to Have Been Made by Benjamin Jowett about the Mural Paintings at the Oxford Union.
Max Beerbohm
1922
Rossetti and His Circle, Plate 4
6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches
"And what were they going to do with the Grail when they found it, Mr. Rossetti?"
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow
Like much good satire, this plate works on several levels and makes several points, the most obvious of which is to mock the middle-brow lack of comprehension with which the Oxford fellows greeted Rossetti's program for the debating hall.
The choice of Jowett, one of the major Oxford figures of his age, makes a much more specific point, since Jowett, who is today most famous for his graceful translations of Plato, was hardly a philistine. At various times Master of Balliol, Regius Professor of Greek, and Vice Chancellor of the University, Jowett was an enormously influential religious liberal and Broad Church Anglican. His essay, "On the Interpretation of Scripture," in Essays and Reviews (1860), which almost cost him his position at Oxford, argued against the literal interpretation of scripture and hence radically undercut not only standard ways of reading the Bible, such as typology, but also any mystical or visionary approach to religion and religous experience. In essence, his approach, which tended to emphasize the humanity of Christ, sees the Grail as mere superstition. From the vantage point of the aesthetic value of the Grail legend, this plate therefore mocks Jowett; but from the vantage point of Beerbohm's own modern approach to belief, it mocks the Pre-Raphaelite and Rossettian longing for mystery. [GPL]
References
Beerbohm, Max. Rossetti and His Circle. London: William Heinemann, 1922.
Last modified 18 May 2006