Journey of Magi
by T. S. Eliot
(About the
poet, the poem, Summary & Analysis)
About the poet
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 –1965) was a poet,
essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. He is Considered
one of the 20th century's major poets, and a central figure in English-language
Modernist poetry.
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in a prominent
Boston Brahmin family. He moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on
to settle, work and marry there. He became a British citizen in 1927 at the age
of 39.
Eliot first received attention for his poem
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1915, and then for some of
the best-known poems in the English language, including "The Waste
Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday"
(1930), and Four Quartets (1943). He was also known for his seven plays,
particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding,
pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".
The Eliots were a Boston Brahmin family of England
and New England. Eliot's father, Henry Ware Eliot was a successful businessman,
president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St Louis. His
mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, wrote poetry and was a social worker.
Eliot attended Smith Academy, the boys’ college and
began to write poetry when he was 14 under the influence of Edward Fitzgerald's
translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His first published poem, "A
Fable For Feasters", was written as a school exercise and was published in
the Smith Academy Record in February 1905.
Journey of the Magi
(The Poem)
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the
terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their
liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the
lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all
night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears,
saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate
valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill
beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in
the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with
vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for
pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we
continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too
soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I
remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen
birth and death,
But had thought they were different;
this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their
gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Summary
The
magi were, according to the bible, the three wise men of the east, that came to
honor the new born Christ. The journey of the magi to the birth place of Christ
is not merely an ordinary physical journey, but also a symbolic of the toils
and troubles of the human soul, in its spiritual quest.
One
of the magi, long after the event, gives an account of journey for the benefit
of the listener. He begins with a factual account of the difficulties, they had
to face during the course of the journey. The experience is projected first in
direct realistic terms- of bad weather and details of hard ships. One after
another, they had followed all the obstacles, provided by both man and nature,
to oppose their journey. The narrator remembers, that it was the faith that
impelled them forward. The sense of urgency, which made them quicken their pace
and which conquered not only the practical difficulties but also their own
doubts.
In
the second stanza, the images are both symbolic as well as realistic. There is Dawn and the smell of vegetation with running
stream and a water mill beating the
darkness. The water and mill both are the vital forces, full of throbbing;
denying the voices, saying, that this was all folly. This symbolizes birth and
regeneration. The fertile valley, the old white horse, vine leaves over the
lintel, and all, speak of hope, freedom and fruitfulness but the three trees
symbolize the three crossed people on the Calvary with Christ. The greed is
shown in the six hands at an open door
dicing for pieces of silver. The end of the journey was satisfactory only
in the sense, that they reach their destination.
The
magi knew, what birth is, but this birth is quite different from the birth he
knew. It means the death of their old selves. It brought about a psychological
change in them but when they returned to their kingdoms and palaces, they were
no longer at ease and their people still worshipping their old gods and following
their old religions. Their journey has caused them a loss in the old faith but
it did not give birth to any new one, hence they remained in agony, doubt and
in perplexity and they long for another death.
The
journey of magi symbolizes a spiritual and psychological transformation of
their old selves, old religion, old ways of life and thinking. A number of
births and deaths are necessary before all doubts are removed. This is
signified by the poet’s longing for another death.
Analysis
T. S.
Eliot is one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. His
influence has been immense on English literature. He was born in America in
1888, came to England in 1914, and became a British citizen. He began to
compose poems in his late teens. He was a scholar and a thinker. From Dante he
learnt how to polish and refine his language, and how to bring his own poetry
in line with the European tradition. He is a classicist in contrast to the
romantics, because he lives in a world around him. In his selection of subjects
and his theory of impersonality he is a modern poet. Eliot was a great
experimenter of verse forms.
The journey of Magi is
one of his Christian poetry. It was written in 1927 and was published in 1931.
In this poem, the poet wants to say, that to get the salvation, one has to face
the same difficulties as the Magi had to face in the quest for the birth place
of the Christ.
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