Misplaced Pages

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition published in 1800 of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. It came to be seen as a de facto manifesto of the Romantic movement.

Key assertions about poetry include:

1. Ordinary life is the best subject for poetry
2. Everyday language is best suited for poetry
3. Expression of feeling is more important than action or plot
4. "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" that "takes its origin from emotion, recollected in tranquillity"

References

1. Berman, Douglas Scott (1999). 'The seduction of system': The critical reception of William Wordsworth's preface to 'Lyrical Ballads', 1800–1820 (Thesis). ProQuest 304540675.
2. Wordsworth, William. "Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 1". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2024-02-15.

v t e William Wordsworth
List of poems
Topics	Early life Lake Poets
Lyrical Ballads	Preface to the Lyrical Ballads "Anecdote for Fathers" "The Idiot Boy" "Lucy Gray" The Lucy poems "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" "A slumber did my spirit seal" "Strange fits of passion have I known" "Three years she grew in sun and shower" The Matthew poems "Michael, a Pastoral" Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey "Poor Susan" "We Are Seven"
Later poetry	Poems, in Two Volumes Peter Bell The White Doe of Rylstone "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" "Elegiac Stanzas" "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" The Lucy poems "I travelled among unknown men" "London, 1802" "My Heart Leaps Up" "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" "Resolution and Independence" "On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic" "The Solitary Reaper" "The World Is Too Much with Us" "To a Butterfly" "Character of the Happy Warrior" The Yarrow poems
The Recluse	The Excursion The Prelude
Prose	Guide to the Lakes
People	Dora Wordsworth (daughter) Dorothy Wordsworth (sister) Christopher Wordsworth (brother) Samuel Taylor Coleridge Robert Southey
Homes	Wordsworth House (birthplace and childhood home) Alfoxton House (1797-1798) Dove Cottage (1799-1808) Allan Bank (1808-1811) Rydal Mount (1813-1850)
Related	Wordsworth Trust

This article about a poetry essay or essay collection is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 1800 essays
• Works by William Wordsworth
• British poetry
• Essays in literary theory
• Essays about poetry
• Manifestos
• Literary essay stubs
• Poetry stubs