The Magi Diction

“Journey of the Magi” by T.S. Elliot - Poetic Element Analysis In his work of poetry, “Journey of the Magi,” T.S. Eliot tells a story of the magi, or the Three Kings, embarking on a journey to visit infant Christ in order to teach his readers the negative effects of change. By implementing the poetic elements of negative diction, imagery, personification, understatement, and metaphor, Eliot effectively promotes the theme that change, with its power and importance, can also be an enemy to those who chose to take its path. Eliot uses the poetic element of negative diction, which is the word choice a poet decides to use. In line 6, Eliot demonstrates negative diction when he describes the camels as “...galled, sorefooted, refractory.” Eliot decided to use negative diction in this poem because he wanted to convey some of the hardships the narrator faced at the beginning of his journey. These words emphasize the hard journey that the narrator takes, therefore indicating that the path of transformation can have negative effects. The

Understatement occurs when the poet ironically minimizes a statement. In line 31, Eliot utilizes understatement in the phrase “Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.” The poet’s use of understatement conveys the narrator’s sense of bitterness when he/she finally reaches the destination. This has an ironic effect because typically, the reader would expect the travelers to be ecstatic. The fact that the narrator only feels satisfaction conveys to the reader that the birth of Christ was not as exciting as expected. This is due to the narrator’s difficulty to adjust to the change from paganism to Christianity. This strategy compels the reader to share the emotions of the narrator, feeling as if the journey was not worth it in the end. After witnessing the narrator’s discomfort with alteration, the reader becomes unwilling to participate in any type of