Eliots Journey
Journey of the Magi is a dramatic monologue dealing with a mans death and reincarnation, in his religious belief. T.S. Elliot fulfills one of the requirements of a dramatic monologue by using a singular speaker. He uses one of the magi in order to accomplish this task of portraying his speech and thought. By expressing a point of view through the use of a character, Eliot fulfills another requirement of a dramatic monologue. Some scholars argue this as a free verse poem bearing no resemblance to Eliots life. Splitting the work into three stanzas, Eliot correlates the poem to his life as follows: unhappy marriage and life, a journey from his troubling beginnings, and in the end finding enlightenment through religion. This reveals that The Journey of the Magi is much more than a simple bible story regarding the Three Wise Men.
Upon first inspection of reading the poem, the reader might develop a sense that Eliots is only writing about the journey of the three Magi trying to reach the baby Jesus. Harris argues in his essay that Eliots Journey of the Magi is usually discounted as an unassuming Christmas poem or given only the most rudimentary of biblical glosses, while it occupying a central position in his poetic development. The poem speaks with a single individualized voice dramatically masking itself and forming a bridge with some of his earlier works like Waste Land, with is multiple voices, and Ash-Wednesday, with its autobiographical voice. (Harris 838) Eliot uses the magi as a speaker in the poem instead writing a straight forward autobiography about himself. Eliot does a wonderful job of transforming biographical material into dramatic monologue. The poem was set-up this way, writing the in a more subjunctive manor. Using a subjective strategy forces the poems to an open interpretation by the reader.
Eliots childhood influenced his writing in this poem. His suffering in health and a rocky marriage are illustrated in the first part of the poem. The first few lines of the poem quoted from Lancelot Andrews sermon, set-up the poem as a dreary and dismal journey ahead. Eliots marriage to his first wife, Vivian, could only be described in seasonal terms by winter. A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of year, and The very dead of winter. Eliot was unhappy with her and it was reflected in his work. The first part of the first stanza set up a dreary somber mood, but the transition into the second part of the first stanza starts to remind about the past where Eliot was happy. He was happy while going to school and finding out his calling to be a writer. Even though looking back on his past before his religious experience, he still enjoyed moments in his life. Silken girls brining sherbet brings us a view of ecstasy and exotic times he experienced in his life. Reading on though, a sense of disgust starts to develop with the prior life and almost a yearning for change.
The second stanza of the poem deals with a transitional period in Eliots life. Eliot gets close to his religious destination when the magi reach the temperate valley. A temperate valley can be described as a warm and pleasurable happy place. Eliot reaches the happy place in his life when he finally converts from the unfulfilling religion of Unitarianism to the Anglican Church. Throughout the second stanza it seems that the Magi only recognize their surroundings for what they really are. Harriss feelings correlate with the previous statement, The magus does not share hindsight of religious icons in the second paragraph. (Harris 840) The story from this part could just be recognized as a regular journey with natural landmarks like trees and running streams. To the uniformed reader, they could carry the view that the magi are just traveling to their destination and observing what they pass. Researching Eliots background, light is shed on the following shadowy metaphors: water-mill, three trees, old white horse, and six hands at an open door. With a minimal amount of biblical knowledge, one could make these assumptions. The metaphors deal with a continuing image of extinction and renewal, three crosses at Calvary, the rebirth of Christ, and the betrayal of Christ. The three crosses reference is interesting because in Unitarianism, the belief was only in one god and not the trinity that is found in Christianity. This image of the three trees can be seen as coming upon a new religion and taking in the change in belief. This just further enhances the fact that this dramatic monologue contains metaphors of metaphors. Further exploration into the connections of these metaphors leads to the ideal of how Eliot is actually building his religious experience till the end when he finally accepts the baptism. Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. This statement shows that a goal, baptism, had been reached.
The last stanza of the poem continues the construction of the dramatic monologue. The reader experiences the psychological drain the Magi are experiencing. This birth was hard and bitter agony for us like death This metaphor describes the birth of Jesus and also death of magic, astrology, and paganism. This psychological change connects right back with Eliot. He has realized that religion is an important part of literature. His birth into his new religion was tough, but the death of his old life was also complicated. T.S. Eliot states in his essay called Religion and Literature, I am convinced that we fail to realize how completely and yet how irrationally we separate our literary from our religious judgments. If there could be a complete separation; perhaps it might no matter, but the separation is not, and can never be complete. After experiencing his religious experience, Eliot has to return to the regular world to deal with the people that he knew from before. These people in his life are now alien to him clutching their gods. He knows nothing of these people now that he has experienced this spiritual awakening. He finishes up his journey with yearning for another death like the death of his old life. This death would be in contrast with the original of his past life, because Eliot is anticipating his new religious awakening. Eliots use of this dramatic monologue can be summed up by the following excerpt from Harris scholarly essay:
By inventing a dramatic monologue whose textual complications station it both at the beginning and at the (present) end of mundane Christian history, he plays both "ends," marked as they are by individual struggle and personal quest, against the middle, the world of institutionalized Christianity whose traditions can sometimes blunt the authentic power of the Incarnation to induce shock.(Harris 853-854)
This poem weaves itself together in a way forming a dramatic monologue that follows a timeline of Eliots life. Eliot wrote this work with the idea though that he wanted the reader to have to do some research in order to obtain the point of view. He masked meanings in behind meanings and metaphors within metaphors to require the reader to look beyond just the common word. In essence, Eliot strived for the reader to experience an awakening in their own lives by making them follow the journey of the Magi and in the end present the reader with a verse open for interpretation, I should be glad of another death.
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