Journey of the Magi

"Journey of the Magi" is a 43-line poem written in 1927 by T. S. Eliot.The poem is one of five that Eliot contributed for a series of 38 pamphlets by several authors collectively titled the Ariel Poems. It is a meditation of the birth of Christ, which retells the story of the Magi, who travelled to Palestine to visit the newborn Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew. It is a narrative in verse, told from the point of view of one of the magi. It expresses themes of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness, product of an ever-changing world. T.S. Elliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Born in 1888 in St. Louis (MO, USA), he is considered one of the 20th century's major poets, and a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry."In ten years' time," wrote Edmund Wilson in Axel's Castle (1931), "Elliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English." In 1948, Eliot was awarded the Nobel Price "for his work as a trail-blazing pioneer of modern poetry."