Journey of Magi

Seamus Perry AO5’s on Magi

• “there is a Prufrockian inability to conceptualise what has been significant to you”

• “transitional poem”

Lord Harris on the ending of the poem AO5

• It ends in a paradox

Roz Kaveney AO5 on religion in the poem

“His religion is the poetic technique in which he can express things … a language that will express everything”

“‘A cold coming we had of it,”

• collective plural pronoun - ambiguity to who the implied listener is

• Quoting from a sermon preached by Bishop of Winchester in 1622

“worst … deep … sharp … dead”

• superlatives - suggesting a hopelessness

• images of decay and mortality

• The motif of a bitter winter

• suggesting there will be suffering in the journey towards faith

• dead - harsh, dental diction

“a journey … long journey”

• extended metaphor of the difficulties faced on the journey to faith and spiritual rebirth

• repetition hyperbolises the difficulty

“melting snow” “summer palaces”

• suggesting life before transition in faith

• time passing reflects how long the journey has been going on

“And …. And …. And”

• Anaphora reflecting growing frustration

“cursing and grumbling …. liquor and women”

• motif of sin and greed

• reflecting the life before jesus sacrificed himself for humans

• suggesting this is the state humans would exist in without faith

“hostile … unfriendly … dirty”

• motif of suffering that exists in a life without faith

“saying/ That this was all folly.”

• mocking in tone

• suggesting there is a struggle to maintain faith in a cynical world

“temperate valley … smelling of vegetation”

• imagery of fertility and fecundity

• The shift in the poem/ volta

• anti-wasteland imagery

• suggesting renewal and hope

“running stream … three trees … vine leaves”

• biblical allusions

• perhaps conveying a hopeful tone

“tavern … empty wine-skins”

• images representing human sin

• weakness, wasteland of human world

Form

dramatic monologue

“Birth or death?”

• Ambiguous - referring to Jesus? or of speakers old identity

• repetition of antithesis

• reflecting another Christian belief that earthly death is a rebirth into spiritual life

“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here”

• suggesting that the speaker has become alienated by their new faith in this immoral land

“in the old dispensation”

• referring to the old political, religious, social systems

• the speakers life before faith

“their gods”

• referencing a pre-Christian astrology - paganism

What it is about vs what it is really about

• extended allusion to wise men as an allegory for a journey to spiritual fulfilment

• framing the journey of individuals towards spiritual renewal

• reflects the difficulty one has fulfilling their spiritual journey

Ao3 - eliots religion

• had a spiritual anagnorisis before writing poem

• converted to Anglo-Christian Church just before writing

• mass everyday

Ao3 - broader than just eliot

• limiting to view poem just through eliot’s own religious journey

• reflects how modernist people wrestled with religious institutions and ideologies

• analyses the alienation that comes with spiritual fulfilment when disconnected to the religious views of others

• In general many people had difficulty defining their religious beliefs after the war - suffering crisis of faiths

Structure of the poem

• Verse paragraphs

• free verse

This is a symbolist poem - what is symbolism poetry

• emotional experience through suggestions and symbols

• rejected realism

What collection was it apart of

The Ariel poems

Konald Bush AO5 quote on the ariel poems

“mediate on spiritual growth”

Rowan Williams on Eliot’s work

it gave “ a new perspective on everything and a new restlessness in a tired and chilly world”