Studying T.S. Eliot’s poetry for HSC English Advanced Module B? Finding it hard to write an analysis for Journey of the Magi?
Not to worry! We’ve got your back — we’ll be walking you through a step by step guide to analyse Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot with a summary of everything you need, including context, themes and more.
PLUS we’ll also provide a free sample analysis table (also called a TEE Table) and a sample paragraph that you can download!
Now, let’s get started on acing your analysis of Journey of the Magi!
Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot Summary
Context
Themes Explored in Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
Analysis of Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
Studying this Text for the HSC
Summary of Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot
The message behind T.S. Eliot’s poetry can sometimes be a bit tricky to find! Especially since his poems use a lot of complex metaphors, symbolisms, and language features to create meaning.
Journey of the Magi is essentially a dramatic monologue from the perspective of a Magus — one of the three wise men who left their life and travelled to Bethlehem to pay homage to infant Jesus. Through the three stanzas of the poem, the Magus narrates the spiritual journey they undertook and the challenges and obstacles they faced along the way.
Of course, this is just a broad summary of the text. The deeper meaning of the poem is actually up to interpretation! You’ll find that the best analysis will come from using your own personal ideas and interpretations to argue what you think the poem is about.
Context
Understanding the context surrounding the text is super important when it comes to analysing Journey of the Magi! Especially since it is often considered as one of Eliot’s deeply personal poems.
Personal Context
T.S. Eliot wrote Journey of the Magi soon after his dramatic conversion to the Anglican faith in 1927. With his conversion, T.S. Eliot was inspired by religion and the idea of religion as an ongoing journey rather than a ‘cure’ or solution.
As a result, unlike many of his preceding poems, Journey of the Magi interrogated concepts of religion, rebirth/enlightenment, and spiritual growth. This marked a major shift in Eliot’s poetry as all of his poetry following this were informed by notions of spirituality and his religious beliefs.
Historical Context
The poem also reflects many features of Modernist literature and is largely inspired by T.S. Eliot’s historical context.
The Modernist movement emerged in the aftermath of World War I as society tried to cope with the death, tragedy and trauma that came from the war. Modernists were very disillusioned by the war and considered the world to be meaningless, futile, bleak, faithless, and pessimistic.
Modernism also saw a loss of faith in science and reason, instead emphasising individual, subjective experiences. Written in 1927, Journey of the Magi was influenced by a lot of Modernist ideas, particularly the alienation, isolation and hopelessness of the modern world.
Themes Explored in Journey of the Magi
Here are some of the key themes and concepts explored in Journey of the Magi:
- Suffering
- Death & Rebirth
- Spirituality
- Hope
The main overarching idea of the poem is spirituality and death/rebirth, so it’s important that you discuss these themes to achieve a sophisticated, complex analysis of the text!
Journey of the Magi is an allegorical poem — this means that it uses symbolism to communicate a deeper hidden meaning. With the literal journey of the Magi from a pre-Christian world towards a new spiritual world, T.S. Eliot essentially conveys how religion is a way to transcend this life through the death of one life — one faith — and the rebirth of another.
However, rather than seeing rebirth and spiritual conversion/transformation as a ‘cure’ or solution, the poem describes it as a difficult, even painful process.
The form of the poem is really important when it comes to exploring this key theme. Written as a dramatic monologue from the perspective of a Magus, the poem is quite unique and different to the established, traditional poetic form.
It takes place over three stanzas, each one representing a different stage of the journey.
The first stanza narrates the most difficult aspect of the voyage and the challenges of spiritual growth and rebirth, while the second stanza continues on with the journey as the Magi reach their destination.
The third and final stanza shows the Magus reflecting on the journey and his narration, trying to figure out its meaning. Through this form and structure, Journey of the Magi interrogates this theme of spirituality, death and rebirth.
How to Analyse Journey of the Magi in 3 Steps
Now that you’re familiar with the context and themes of the poem, it’s time to start analysing it! You might be tempted to jump right into writing your essay, but first, you need to make sure you have a strong foundation.
This is where your analysis comes in! Analysing your text will give you a great foundational understanding of the text and help you access those top marks when it comes to actually writing your essay.
Let’s take a look at 3 easy steps for analysing Journey of the Magi!
Step 1: Choose your examples
Finding good examples from your text will bring a lot of depth to your analysis, so it’s really important to start with this step! After all, examples are the key evidence to support your thesis.
For this analysis, we’ve chosen two quotes from Journey of the Magi as an example:
- “And running away… And the night-fires going out…And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly…And the villages dirty”
- “Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley… smelling of vegetation; with a running stream…”
Need help finding good examples? We’ve got 50 important T.S. Eliot quotes to help you out! Check out the list of quotes here.
Step 2: Identify your technique(s)
When you are finding your examples, you also need to identify techniques which can be analysed to expand your argument. Techniques help you dig deeper into the meaning, messages, and key ideas of the poem and will help you talk about what your example actually does — its effect.
Try to find more than one technique within your example and maybe even look out for any techniques that connect multiple examples! This will make it easier to develop a holistic and sophisticated argument.
In the examples above, the techniques we’re looking at are polysyndeton, juxtaposition, and imagery.
If you’re struggling to find techniques, check out our literary techniques cheat sheet here!
Step 3: Carry out the analysis
Now that we have our techniques and examples sorted out, it’s time to put it all together!
When it comes to analysing a text, the important thing to consider is the effect of the technique and how this is linked to a broader idea. Think about what the composer is trying to convey and the techniques they used to achieve this.
You don’t want to simply restate the quote and label techniques like this:
Eliot uses polysyndeton to create the imagery of “ running away… And the night-fires going out…And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly…And the villages dirty” to explore the difficulties of the journey and the challenges of modern, urban life.
Instead, try to flesh it out so that it looks more like this:
The first stanza explores the physical difficulties of the journey to convey the challenges of modern, urban life and spiritual growth. This is evident with Eliot’s description of “running away… And the night-fires going out…And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly…And the villages dirty”, which uses polysyndeton to overwhelm the reader with a culmination of ideas that reaches its peak with the imagery of a hostile urban environment. This is juxtaposed by the beautiful imagery of rejuvenation and birth with “a temperate valley… smelling of vegetation; with a running stream…” to suggest a progression from a hostile urban life towards a spiritual experience of rebirth. This juxtaposition elucidates Eliot’s exploration of spirituality as a challenging yet inevitable journey towards rebirth and enlightenment, which reaffirms the idea of transcending a Modernist futile existence through religion.
Studying this Text for HSC English Module B: Critical Study of Literature
One important thing to consider when analysing Journey of the Magi is its connection to HSC English Module B: Critical Study of Literature.
Essentially, Module B requires you to critically study and appreciate “a substantial literary text” by thinking about all aspects of the text, including its “construction, content and language”, which means you need to think about it holistically!
This is where textual integrity comes in. Textual integrity is about how all the different aspects of the text come together to form a cohesive piece of literature. It is also about how and why the text continues to resonate across different contexts, even though it was written a century ago.
The other super important part of the Module B rubric is that you are expected to develop a personal response to the text. This means you get a chance to let your personal voice and ideas shine through!
As you work on your analysis, think about what you love (or hate!) about Journey of the Magi. Why is that?
What did you enjoy about the poem? Or why did it fail to connect with you? Use these things you love or dislike and try to uncover the form, structure, themes, language and context that may have influenced your personal response.
Looking for more tips to unpack Module B? Check out our guide to Year 12 English Advanced Module B: Critical Study of Literature!
Need some help analysing other texts?
Check out other texts we’ve created guides for below:
- I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
- Ransom
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Away by Michael Gow
- Frank Hurley: The Man Who Made History
- The Stranger
- Mabo
- Good Night and Good Luck
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Così
- King Richard III
- Wild Grapes
- ‘Red’ by Ted Hughes
- Run Lola Run
- King Lear
- The Pedestrian
- Rainbow’s End
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Maitreyi Kulkarni is a Content Writer at Art of Smart Education and is currently studying a Bachelor of Media and Communications (Public Relations and Social Media) at Macquarie University. She loves writing just about anything from articles to poetry, and has also had one of her articles published with the ABC. When she’s not writing up a storm, she can be found reading, bingeing sitcoms, or playing the guitar.
