"Journey of the Magi." By T.S. Eliot

Anthony Ryder September 30, 2007
English 2306


“Journey of the Magi.” By T.S. Eliot

Eliot has composed “journey of the Magi” in a free verse style with lines of different length. In my opinion, he attaches an additional meaning in his choosing of the line breaking points. In the first, second and fifth lines of the first stanza, Eliot devotes seven syllables to each line to clarify the weather condition at the time the story is unfolding. For example, the fifth line reads:
“The very dead of winter…”

Eliot brings back to the reader the memory of a deadly weather during a typical worst and coldest winter season. But Eliot goes further in the third and fourth lines and informs the reader that, contrary to common sense, a long journey has already been decided. Despite the presence of the deadliest weather outside, a journey is nonetheless in progress. Lines 3 and 4 read as follow:
“For the Journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp.”

To emphasize on the seriousness and dangers brought by the decision of carrying out such a long trip during such a poor and life threatening atmospherical condition, Eliot increases the number of syllables to eight or ten.

The free verse nature of this poem is confirmed throughout this entire work, including in the fourth stanza where the line’s length ranges from one to 14 syllables. The most shocking is line 23 which contains only one syllable:
“This:…”

Certainly Eliot wanted to stress that the magi, after going through hardships in hostile towns or unfriendly villages in addition to battling the bad weather arrived finally at their ultimate destination. That one syllable written in the typical Imagist style serves to announce to the reader that the following line is about to disclose a huge surprise: the view of a newborn King that Eliot identifies with the word Birth written with a capital B.

Line 25 is the longest with 14 syllables. It reads:
“We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death.”

Eliot certainly wanted to create a sharp contrast between on the one hand the great number of births (-written with small letter b-) the magi and the reader have altogether heard or witnessed during their lifetimes. On the other hand there is this exceptional arrival of the newborn King. Thus, Eliot would opt to devote the longest line to the countless myriads of witnessed births of ordinary people.