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The Journey Of The Mgai By T. S. Eliot

 

            
             The story of the Magi, the three wise and rich kings who took a long journey, following the shooting star to greet the newborn infant Jesus is a very important story of the Christian culture. If we think of the Magi, the first things that come to our minds are the birth of Jesus, Christmas, a holy and solemn mood and joy as Jesus has come to our world as the Redeemer.
             The Journey of the Magi is one of Eliot's four Ariel Poems, which was published as part of a series of illustrated Christmas greetings pamphlets. This was Eliot's first commissioned poem.
             Describing the long and tiring journey of the three kings could emphasize that the whole journey was worth struggling to see and greet the infant Jesus, but it is not what Eliot tries to express.
             This narrative and cold tone makes him capable of looking at the Magi objectively and without bias. Nevertheless, even without passionate emotions and despite the varying lenght of lines and the changing rhyme schemes, the rythm and the carefully thought-out poetic figures make the Journey of the Magi a real poem. In my opinion, writing about such a well-known and holy event as the myth of the Magi in a tone like this and expressing deep feelings without exuberant and usual emotions is something outstanding and special. .
             The atmosphere of the first paragraph is unbiased as well, we read a cold, objective description. The narrator, one of the Magi presents the details of the journey, in a manner as if he was tired and as if he was repeating the too well known, something that he has explained many times. The first five lines are put in inverted commas. These lines are taken from Lancelot Andrews's Nativity Sermon preached before James I on Christman Day in 1622. Eliot cites these lines in his Lancelot Andrews essay as one of those "flashing lines" which "never desert the memory" . The text given in the poem is not the original one, there are slight changes made by the poet.


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