“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Summary

“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Themes

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  Homesickness and Homecoming

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  Grief and Memory

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I Travelled Among Unknown Men”

• Lines 1-4

  I travelled among unknown men,
  In lands beyond the sea;
  Nor, England! did I know till then
  What love I bore to thee.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
  Nor will I quit thy shore
  A second time; for still I seem
  To love thee more and more.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  Among thy mountains did I feel
  The joy of my desire;
  And she I cherished turned her wheel
  Beside an English fire.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-16

  Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
  The bowers where Lucy played;
  And thine too is the last green field
  That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

  

  

  

  

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“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Nor
• Bore
• Thee, Thy, Thine
• 'Tis
• Melancholy
• Quit
• Wheel
• Bowers
• Surveyed

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I Travelled Among Unknown Men”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Speaker

“I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “I Travelled Among Unknown Men”

More “I Travelled Among Unknown Men” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Wordsworth's life and work via the British Library.

  • The Wordsworth Trust — Visit the website of a museum dedicated to William and Dorothy Wordsworth.

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

  • Wordsworth's Legacy — Read an appreciation of Wordsworth by contemporary novelist Margaret Drabble.

  • Lyrical Ballads — Take a look at the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, the collection with which Wordsworth and Coleridge changed English poetry forever.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

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  • Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)

  • It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

  • Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

  • Lines Written in Early Spring

  • London, 1802

  • Mutability

  • My Heart Leaps Up

  • Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

  • Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

  • She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

  • She was a Phantom of Delight

  • The Solitary Reaper

  • The Tables Turned

  • The World Is Too Much With Us

  • Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

  • To a Snowdrop

  • We Are Seven