“Journey of the Magi”: Retentive Agony of Mind-scape in the Physical and Spiritual Travelogue

Abstract

In “Journey of the Magi,” T. S. Eliot uses a dramatic monologue to testify to what the magi experience in their physical and spiritual journey towards aspiring new faith. The poet juxtaposes the conventional gospel story and Lancelot Andrewes’s Nativity Sermon of 1622. He describes the magi’s struggles between old dispensation and new dispensation on their way to a spiritual ascending. In addition to severe cold weather and less hospitality of a new place, the magi have to endure the hardship of spiritual journey. This essay examines why the magi’s travelogue about their journey is a bitter memory in terms of spiritual hardship and physical suffering. Magi’s ignorance of the full meaning of the Birth and Death or the Rebirth of Jesus is revealed not only in their hesitant attitude but also in their incomplete liberation from the old values. This essay focuses on the idea that their hesitance may result from a synchronic rather than diachronic meaning of the bitter agony of the Birth. I explore the dual or manifold meanings of agony in an allegorical reading of the lines. I argue that the bitter memory in their journey, the unique amalgamation of the spiritual and physical travelogue, is the inevitable marks to trigger the allegorical agony prevalent in the still point of death and birth.