'Yes, yes, Mr Burne-Jones,' Benjamin Jowett is reputed to have said as he inspected the artist's newly completed Arthurian murals in the Oxford Union, 'but what does one do with the Grail once one has found it?' This sounds almost as much the definitive question as the Grail was the definitive quest, but Jowett's objection is more radically misconceived than any answer could be. The Grail is the ultimate object of desire: finding it would precisely be beside the point. Questing after it is an end in itself, as it is not for that other object of infinite search, the philosopher's stone. Alchemists at least knew what they wanted, how to set about looking for it, and what it would do once it had been discovered. The writers of Grail romances often barely knew what their knights were to look for, or how they should reach it, let alone what they might do with it once they had found it.

LRB 6 June 2002 | PDF Download