21 pages • 42 minutes read
T. S. EliotJourney of the Magi
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1927A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot (1913)
If “Journey of the Magi” is about the advent of a new religious faith, this early Modernist poem shows a man who not only has no faith but also lacks a sustaining belief of any kind. Both poems are dramatic monologues, but that is all they have in common. Prufrock is a middle-aged man who is aware that his life is futile and superficial. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” (Line 57), he says. He would like to discover meaning and purpose in his life, but he is too indecisive and timid to initiate any fundamental change.
“Ash Wednesday” by T. S. Eliot (1930)
Eliot published the first part of “Ash Wednesday” in December 1927, about the same time as “Journey of the Magi” appeared. Like the latter poem, “Ash Wednesday” is an early product of his conversion to Christianity. For Christians, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is a time to repent, to be aware of mortality and seek salvation from God.
Over the course of this six-part poem, the speaker undertakes a spiritual journey. They start in despair, having lost interest in their former pursuits, but they begin to come to life again upon encountering a mysterious Lady who resembles the Virgin Mary. The speaker begins a spiritual ascent, symbolized by a spiral staircase, and in the following section (Part IV), they appear to have an experience, mediated through the Lady, of the spiritual realm of life. In the next section, the speaker sees the darkness in which the world is living. Finally, they pray that they may discover peace within themselves and not be separated from God. As in “Journey of the Magi,” Eliot presents the spiritual path as a difficult and demanding one.
“Animula” by T. S. Eliot (1929)
This is the only poem Eliot wrote that focuses on childhood. The poem begins with a reference to Dante’s Purgatory: “‘Issues from the hand of God the simple soul’” (Line 1), but the innocence of the soul is gradually destroyed as it enters the world of time and change. The poem presents an engaging picture of the child at home, playing, observing, learning, but it soon experiences the “pain of living” (Line 21) and carries a burden; the formerly simple soul becomes “Irresolute and selfish, misshapen, lame” (Line 25), as well as fearful and disordered, a “spectre in its own gloom” (Line 29).
The poem ends with a prayer for such souls who have pursued their wayward, difficult course: “Pray for us now and at the hour of our birth” (Line 37), which is a twist on the following line from “Ash Wednesday”: “Pray for us now and at the hour of our death” (Line 41). It suggests the need for divine mercy to mitigate the pain of growing from childhood to adulthood, while also suggesting the association of birth and death in “Journey of the Magi.”
Further Literary Resources
The Cambridge Introduction to T. S. Eliot by John Xiros Cooper (2006)
Cooper provides a concise (124-page) introduction to Eliot for students and general readers. It is divided into four chapters: Life, Context (including influences, culture and society, and romanticism and classicism), Works, and Critical Reception. The author states that the book “tries to capture the complexity of a difficult man and poet but in a language and approach that will not alienate the nonspecialist.” Of “Journey of the Magi,” Cooper writes that it “clearly defines the dilemma faced by the new convert to faith, especially if one is a significant individual with public responsibilities.”
A Readers’ Guide to T. S. Eliot: A Poem-by-Poem Analysis by George Williamson (1998)
Originally published in 1955 and since enlarged, this is an excellent guide to Eliot’s poetry for the general reader. Williamson does not attempt to give a full reading or analysis of the poems but to show their patterns (where those are not obvious), the directions in which they move, and what they are essentially about. For “Journey of the Magi,” he notes the contrast between the matter-of-fact tone in which the Magus tells of the journey and the immense significance of that journey.
“Death in Life at Christmas: T. S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’” by Gerald P. Boersma (2020)
In this article, which appeared in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Boersma’s reading emphasizes the inadequacy, from the point of view of the Christian reader, of the Magus’s experience of witnessing the infant Jesus:
There is no epiphany […] The Magus leaves unchanged, still despondent, still hopeless. The encounter in the stable evokes no spiritual rebirth. The Magus knows that the old is dissolved but has nothing to put in its place so he feels resignation rather than joy (Boersma, 29).
The reason for this failure is that the Magus cannot comprehend the allusions to the crucifixion in the second stanza (which the reader does), so he does not grasp what Eliot, as a Christian believer, wants to convey, that the birth and death of Christ are inextricably linked: “[T]o find the stable is at the same time to find the place of the skull” (Boersma, 29).
"Listen to Poem
Eliot reads his poem during an interview he did for BBC Radio during World War II. The reading is accompanied by stock photographs of some of the scenes described.
Related Titles
By T. S. Eliot
