Last updated William Wordsworth, author of "I travelled among unknown men"
"I travelled among unknown men" is a love poem completed in April 1801[1] by the English poet William Wordsworth and originally intended for the Lyrical Ballads anthology, but it was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes in 1807 (see 1807 in poetry). The third poem of Wordsworth's "Lucy series", "I travelled..." was composed after the poet had spent time living in Germany in 1798. Due to acute homesickness, the lyrics promise that once returned to England, he will never live abroad again. The poet states he now loves England "more and more".[2] Wordsworth realizes that he did not know how much he loved England until he lived abroad and uses this insight as an analogy to understand his unrequited feelings for his beloved, Lucy.[3]
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).
Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature and poetry.
Poems, in Two Volumes is a collection of poetry by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, published in 1807.
Although "I travelled..." was written two years after the other four poems in the series, in both tone and language it closely echoes the earlier work.[4] Wordsworth gives no hint as to the identity of Lucy, and although he stated in the introduction that all the poems were 'founded on fact', knowing the basis for the character of Lucy is not necessary to appreciate the poem and its sentiment. Earlier critics assumed she represents a youthful love of Wordsworth who had died, but modern scholarship believes she was likely a hybrid or largely fictitious. Similarly, no insight can be gained from determining the exact geographical location of the 'springs of Dove'; in his youth, Wordsworth had visited springs of that name in Derbyshire, Patterdale and Yorkshire.[4]
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire, containing the southern extremity of the Pennine range of hills which extend into the north of the county. The county contains part of the National Forest, and borders on Greater Manchester to the northwest, West Yorkshire to the north, South Yorkshire to the northeast, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the southeast, Staffordshire to the west and southwest and Cheshire also to the west. Kinder Scout, at 636 metres (2,087 ft), is the highest point in the county, whilst Trent Meadows, where the River Trent leaves Derbyshire, is its lowest point at 27 metres (89 ft). The River Derwent is the county's longest river at 66 miles (106 km), and runs roughly north to south through the county. In 2003 the Ordnance Survey placed Church Flatts Farm at Coton in the Elms as the furthest point from the sea in Great Britain.
Patterdale is a small village and civil parish in the eastern part of the English Lake District in the Eden District of Cumbria, in the traditional county of Westmorland, and the long valley in which they are found, also called the Ullswater Valley.
Yorkshire, formally known as the County of York, is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Due to its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as a geographical territory and cultural region. The name is familiar and well understood across the United Kingdom and is in common use in the media and the military, and also features in the titles of current areas of civil administration such as North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire.
The poem is filled with conflict and contradictions. Comparing the irony of the usage of the words "among" and "unknown" in the poem's title, the critic Mark Jones concluded that 'unknown' indicated the poet finally realizes the depth of his feelings for Lucy. Jones wrote, "these are paradoxes of memory and belated appreciation, and they turn on the question of what it is to know, as the two uses of this word in the first stanza indicate".[3] The language used is highly nostalgic for a personal and societal ideal, according to critic Dudley Fitts it "expresses with quiet assurance the value of a life lived within the protective circle of a national and social tradition".[5]
Lucy's only appearance is in the second half of the poem, where she is linked with the English landscape. As such, it seems as if nature joins with the narrator in mourning over Lucy, and the reader is drawn within this mutual sorrow. Although the poem focuses on death, it transitions into a poem describing the narrator's love for England and nature.[6]
'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more. (lines 5–8)
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography: The Early Years, 1770-1803. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian scholarly publisher and book distributor founded in 1901.
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