"Journey of the Magi" is a 43-line poem written in 1927 by T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). It is one of five poems that Eliot contributed for a series of 38 pamphlets by several authors collectively titled the Ariel Poems and released by the British publishing house Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber). Published in August 1927, "Journey of the Magi" was the eighth in the series and was accompanied by illustrations drawn by American-born avant garde artist Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890–1954). The poems, including "Journey of the Magi", were later published in both editions of Eliot's collected poems in 1936 and 1963.

In the previous year, Eliot had converted to Anglo-Catholicism and his poetry, starting with the Ariel Poems (1927–1931) and Ash Wednesday (1930), took on a decidedly religious character. In the poem, Eliot retells the story of the biblical Magi who travelled to Bethlehem to visit the newborn Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew. It is a narrative, told from the point of view of one of the magi, that expresses themes of alienation, regret and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed. The poem's dramatic monologue incorporates quotations and literary allusions to works by earlier writers Lancelot Andrewes and Matthew Arnold.

Writing and publication

thumb|left|T. S. Eliot in 1920, in a photo taken by [[Lady Ottoline Morrell|alt="Portrait of T.S. Eliot in a parlour"]]

In 1925, Eliot became a poetry editor at the London publishing firm of Faber and Gwyer, Ltd., after a career in banking, and subsequent to the success of his earlier poems, including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), "Gerontion" (1920) and "The Waste Land" (1922). In these years, Eliot gravitated away from his Unitarian upbringing and began to embrace the Church of England. He was baptised into the Anglican faith on 29 June 1927 at Finstock, in Oxfordshire, and was confirmed the following day in the private chapel of Thomas Banks Strong, Bishop of Oxford. Eliot converted in private, but subsequently declared in his 1927 preface to a collection of essays titled For Lancelot Andrewes that he considered himself a classicist in literature, a royalist in politics, and an Anglo-Catholic in religion. When his conversion became known, it was "an understandable choice to those around him" given his intellectual convictions, and that "he could not have done anything less than seek what he regarded as the most ancient, most sacramental, and highest expression of the Christian faith that forms the indisputable basis for the culture and civilization of modern Europe". One critic, Morton D. Zabel said that this "deprived his art of its once incomparable distinction in style and tone". Other critics thought Eliot's exploration of Christian themes was a positive development in his poetry, including Gordon Symes, who recognised it as "an evaluation of old age, an elucidation of its special grace, and an appreciation of its special function in the progress of the soul".

In 1927, Eliot was asked by his employer, Geoffrey Faber, one of the partners in Faber & Gwyer, to write one poem each year for a series of illustrated pamphlets with holiday themes to be sent to the firm's clients and business acquaintances as Christmas greetings.

Faber & Gwyer, Ltd., printed the "Journey of the Magi" in a 7¼" × 4 ¾", Octavo (8vo) pamphlet "line block in black with brown and grey; casing, thin card covered with yellow laid paper." The font of the cover and poem text was "Imprint" created by Gerard Meynell & J. H. Mason in 1913 for the printing trade magazine The Imprint. A yellow cover was used for Eliot's poem after Curwen's designer Paul Nash objected for its use in the seventh Ariel pamphlet, Siegfried Sassoon's "Nativity". This opening recollection by the magus sets off the reflections which follow. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went that "this was all folly". The magus seems generally unimpressed by the infant, and yet realizes that the Incarnation has changed everything. He asks,

:". . . were we led all that way for

:Birth or Death?"

The birth of Christ was the death of the world of magic, astrology, and paganism (cf Colossians 2:20). The speaker, recalling his journey in old age, suggests that after that birth his world had died, and he had little to do but wait for his own death.

The poem maintains Eliot's long habit of using the dramatic monologue – a form he inherited and adapted from Robert Browning. The speaker of the poem is in agitation and speaks to the reader directly. His revelations are accidental and born out of his emotional distress. As with other works, Eliot chooses an elderly speaker – someone who is world-weary, reflective, and sad (cf. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Gerontion, the Tiresias narrator of The Waste Land, and possibly the narrator of The Hollow Men). His narrator in this poem is a witness to historical change who seeks to rise above his historical moment, a man who, despite material wealth and prestige, has lost his spiritual bearings.

The poem has a number of symbolist elements, where an entire philosophical position is summed up by the manifestation of a single image. For example, the narrator says that on the journey they saw "three trees against a low sky"; the image suggesting the historical and spiritual future of the crucifixion (the skies lowered and heaven opened).

See also

  • List of Christmas-themed literature

References

  • Text of the poem and recording of Eliot reading the poem
  • Journey of the Magi research and analysis from University of South Florida