In this paper I want first of all to examine what the liturgy essentially (or rather existentially) is: and then, having made my view of that question clear I want to make some brief suggestions as to how this conception of the liturgy might be grasped by undergraduates taking a combined honours course in theology and English literature. I am going to discuss this particular combination of subjects, partly because it is explicitly mentioned by Laurence Bright in his paper in the symposium, but also because I think it is a combination particularly interesting in itself. What I have to say must not be construed as constituting a syllabus for a course let alone as a substitute for the teaching of the history of liturgical forms and their relation to the theological preoccupations of their periods.