The Journey of the Magi is a poem written by T.S. Eliot in 1927 ( HYPERLINK "http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/t-s-eliot" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/t-s-eliot ). The poem itself is a narration of a classical biblical story of Magi’s journey undertaken in order to witness the fact of the birth of the Son of God (as the title of the poem suggests), retold by one of the magi’s in a very interesting manner, being the author’s interpretation of what it must have felt like to be on a journey for that particular magus. The poem can be interpreted in a number of ways as a lot of symbolic layers of meanings can be found in it. This paper will analyze the poem’s structure, mood and theme in order to prove that despite the obvious thematic layer (a magus expressing his hard feelings and certain disappointment related to the change), the poem can also be interpreted as a manifest of a man who witnesses a historical change which deprives him of his old beliefs and ways and promises a very blurry future without answering any of his questions.
The title of the poem “The Journey of the Magi” is actually its main theme. The poem has a narrator – he is one of the magi, and he dwells on everything that they had to go through in order to reach their final destination – which is not directly named, but which is understood from the context of the biblical story. The birth of the Son of God is never referred to directly, however it is clearly understood not only by the words “the journey of the magi”, but also by the setting described by one of them:
“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” (T.S. Eliot)
The “very dead of winter” is exactly when Jesus Christ was born, which is another proof of the fact that the journey they undertook was the same biblical journey.
The poem consists of three structural and thematic parts. The first one is the account of magi’s journey, which turned out to be very difficult as the magi had to overcome many difficulties in order to get to the place of their destination. Their camels were tired and reluctant to move any further (“… and the camel galled, sore-footed, refractory, lying down in the melting snow”); the camel men were not happy with the conditions of their journey either and demanded “liquor and women” and even ran away; they encountered no hospitality in the cities and villages they travelled to, and they decided to travel during the night to avoid the inconveniences and dangers of staying somewhere. They had their doubts as the magus states twice in this part of the poem:
“There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet” (T.S. Eliot)
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