That Jowett "graffito"

Edgar M. Krentz (emkrentz@mcs.com)
Thu, 31 Oct 1996 21:46:07 -0500

I have been interested to see the evidence of oral tradition and memory in
the transmission of the Jowett "graffito." I have still another version to
add to the list:

First come I; my name is Jowett.
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am master of this college:
What I don't know isn't knowledge.

The writer Ved Mehta cited this version in his article "What shall I read?
An Oxford Memoir," THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR 62 (1993) 59.

He said that Jowett's Balliol colleague Henry Charles Beeching pennd the
poem as given above. Add it to the anecdote collection--and see how the
oral tradion, always lively among college students, handed it on in variant
manner.

Given the rhyme, I don't what it suggests about how to pronounce the
name--since I also cannot reproduce in my mind the British pronunciation of
know it.

Edgar Krentz, New Testament
emkrentz@mcs.com OR ***** ekrentz@lstc.edu
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
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