“A Holy Warfare against the Age”: Essays and Tales of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine

Abstract

The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine offers a case study of cross-influence and collaboration between a tightly knit group of editors and contributors. Its contents manifest a non-doctrinal, secular, and art-catholic approach to religion and faith in the power of intellectual inquiry and art to effect social transformation. The contributors’ progressive aspirations for education are particularly apparent in Godfrey Lushington’s essay on “Oxford University” and William Fulford’s proto-feminist “Woman, Her Duties, Education, and Position.” By contrast, several of the magazine’s tales, among them R. W. Dixon’s “The Rivals,” Edward Burne-Jones’s “A Story of the North,” and William Morris’s “The Story of the Unknown Church,” memorialize artistic sublimation and the notion of redemption through loss. An exception is William Fulford’s “Found, Yet Lost,” the sole tale told from a woman’s perspective, which offers sarcastic commentary on established religion and the class system. Although it failed to reach a popular audience, the magazine served a significant purpose in concentrating the intellect of a group of strikingly gifted young men.