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Lyrical Ballads

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William Wordsworth

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Lyrical Ballads (Poetry Bookshelf)

William Wordsworth,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

3.94 · Rating details · 11,281 ratings · 218 reviews

Twenty-three poems that transformed English poetry

Wordsworth and Coleridge composed this powerful selection of poetry during their youthful and intimate friendship. Reproducing the first edition of 1798, this edition of Lyrical Ballads allows modern readers to recapture the book's original impact. In these poemsincluding Wordsworth's Lines written a few miles above Tin

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Paperback, 251 pages

Published January 22nd 1996 by Heinemann Educational Publishers (first published 1798)

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Sep 13, 2016 Bill Kerwin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 18th-c-brit, 19th-c-brit, poetry

Small volumes of verse often start literary revolutions, and this little book published in 1798 is perhaps the most revolutionary of all, It not only brought England into the Romantic Movement, but also simplified English poetic diction, right up to the present day.

In 1800, Wordsworth would add the famous preface which defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" originating in "great emotion recollected in tranquility," but this influential definition provided a more sophi
Small volumes of verse often start literary revolutions, and this little book published in 1798 is perhaps the most revolutionary of all, It not only brought England into the Romantic Movement, but also simplified English poetic diction, right up to the present day.

In 1800, Wordsworth would add the famous preface which defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" originating in "great emotion recollected in tranquility," but this influential definition provided a more sophisticated rationale for what was a simple experiment by two young poets. They used every day speech to create the most forceful poetic expressions possible by 1) telling realistic stories of humble English people, often in their own voices (Wordsworth) and 2) creating fantastic tales in the plain though archaic language of the the old English ballad (Coleridge). By so doing, they hoped to invigorate the pastoral, dignify the gothic, and create something new as well.

Wordsworth performs his task ably, endowing his simple people with full humanity, evoking our pity on their behalf. Occasionally, his poems are too long--"The Idiot Boy" comes immediately to mind--but, even at his "words-words" redundant worst, he gives--for the first time, I believe--poor country people a dignified human voice, thus preparing the way for Hardy and Steinbeck and many writers to come.

This first edition consists of nineteen poems by Wordsworth and four by Coleridge. This isn't as imbalanced as it may seem, for one of Coleridge's four poems is the impressive--and lengthy--"Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In this imitation ballad, Coleridge takes Chatterton's experiment in antiquarian forgery and transforms it into great literature. His archaic diction seems vivid and new, and allows his contemporary Romantic theme--the reverence for nature in all her wild variety--to speak with the authority of the ages.

"Mariner" and "Tintern Abbey" are undoubtedly the two greatest poems in this collection, but each and every poem is worth your time. If on occasion--particularly in Wordsworth--a phrase may strike you as trite and sentimental, remember that Wordsworth was the one who "made it new." The triteness, the sentimentality came after. ...more

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Oct 24, 2017 Sean Barrs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star-reads, poetry, romantic-movement

Who wants a revolution?

Well Wordsworth and Coleridge certainly did. Their writing existed in the intellectual aftermath of the French revolution; thus, they tried to radicalise it and revolutionise it. With Lyrical ballads they, undoubtedly, changed the destiny of English literature. Granted, that’s a huge sweeping statement to make but, nevertheless, it is a true one.

No longer would poetry be the lofty language of the elites, a means for the bourgeoisie to demonstrate their intellect; it would ...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

Happy birthday, William Wordsworh, April 7.

The World Is Too Much With Us
William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in ...more

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Feb 13, 2020 Cindy Rollins rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, 20for2020reads

#20for2020 I am counting this as a complete book of poems by a single author as there are only 2 or 3 poems in this book which were not written by William Wordsworth.

Confession 1: I was very intimidated by this book. I felt like I should read it in preparation for my trip to Ambleside in April but I thought it was going to be a slog. It was not even close to a slog. It was entirely delightful.

Confession 2: I like my poetry lyrical and that is exactly what these poems are. They rhyme, they flow ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Adam rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 1500-s-1700-s, poetry

I feel like an asshole, at this point, for not being able to "get" Wordsworth. Every couple of years I read Wordsworth again and there's some very bright, very compassionate, very distinguished-type person who makes beautiful, eloquent arguments in these poems' favour. But I still really just couldn't give less of a shit. I don't know. While I respect Wordsworth, there's a strange personal-type bias I have against the guy. It's a bit more like "I really wouldn't invite this dude to a party at my ...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Himanshu Karmacharya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

What started out as an expetiment for Wordsworth and Coleridge, became a major factor in bringing forth the English Romantic Movement in literature.

Even though they have employed the use of vernacular language, the poetry is so rhyming, rhythmical and beautiful. There are plenty of poems, some a love letter to nature, some stories of the common people. It contains some of their most famous poems, including Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".

Overall, it is an absolutely delightful read. ...more

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Nov 29, 2008 Ann Klefstad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Of course these are wonderful. If only he'd died a little younger, like a good lyric poet . . . ...more

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Mar 29, 2021 Cerys Pryce rated it really liked it · review of another edition

northern excellence. coleridge is alright too.

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Jul 20, 2009 Trevor (I sometimes get notified of comments) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, poetry

The copy of this that I have, and have just finished reading, is a reprint of the first edition of 1798. It has no notes, other than those presented by the authors themselves, and the book probably suffers for this. I probably should have gotten hold of a version that had a good introduction – but too late now.

There are two poems in this collection that I have read before – The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey. There is a reason why these are the mos The copy of this that I have, and have just finished reading, is a reprint of the first edition of 1798. It has no notes, other than those presented by the authors themselves, and the book probably suffers for this. I probably should have gotten hold of a version that had a good introduction – but too late now.

There are two poems in this collection that I have read before – The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey. There is a reason why these are the most famous poems from this collection, I think they are clearly the best poems in the collection and the only ones I would choose to read again.

Some of the other poems are very ‘dramatic’ – The Thorn for example and The Mad Mother both on the theme of seduced women driven mad by abandoned lovers who leave them pregnant – but the themes seem quaint. I also felt the images were perhaps a little too ‘easy’. Not something I could ever say about the images in The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere .

There is a self-confidence in Coleridge’s Rime that really marks it out as something special compared with many of the other poems here. The idea of an old man stopping you on your way to a wedding and you stopping to listen to the point of missing the wedding tells you that the story being told is going to have to be one worth listening to. I don’t think there is any threat of someone missing a wedding to finish hearing the ballad of The Idiot Boy. The images of killing the albatross with a cross-bow, of wearing the bird like a cross around the sailor’s neck, of all of the crew dying of thirst while surrounded by literally an ocean of water, or the dead sailors, come back to life, raising their right-arms aflame as torches – these are not the sorts of images that are easy to forget.

I had hoped I would enjoy the other poems in this collection nearly as much as I’ve always enjoyed the Rime and Tintern Abbey – but I found the others rather dull, to be honest. I do understand that this collection holds a very important place in the history of poetry, it being the first work of the Romantic Movement. All the same, I found poems like Expostulation and Reply and even Lines left upon a seat too keen to make a point – and that point being that idol reflection on nature is an unequivocal good. To me, this point – no matter how right – just wasn’t really enough to sustain my interest. However, I have to concede that much the same point is being made in Tintern Abbey and yet that poem never bothers me at all.
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Mar 27, 2018 Zoe Stewart (Zoe's All Booked) added it · review of another edition

I honestly don't know how to rate this. I've just spent an entire semester talking about this book, so I know these poems quite well. That being said, this is not something I would ever pick up just for fun. I don't particularly like poetry, but I have developed a certain appreciation for this collection. ...more

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Dec 01, 2021 Moony rated it liked it · review of another edition

Who would have thought I could enjoy (and at times even understand!!) poetry. We are seven is and always will be best girl.

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Feb 07, 2017 Eliza rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romantics, poetry, classics-so-you-think-i-m-clever

Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet

The poetry equivalent of sinking into a hot bath and with Classic FM playing something wholesome for you in the background. ...more

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May 03, 2013 Becky rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

If I continued with my theme of replacing books of the bible with works of poetry instead, I would use mostly Wadsworth to replace Proverbs. Many of these poems are cautionary tales encouraging kindness and empathy, and the rest are extolling the virtues of nature. No, going out into nature isn’t one of the commandments, but it should have been, I think we would all be better for it. Wadsworth encourages “nature baths,” a spiritual bathing in nature to cleanse the soul of the stresses of urban l ...more

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Mar 19, 2015 Holly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I actually really enjoyed this poems more than I thought I would. Especially Tintern Abbey (a beautiful poem).

Romanticism isn't really my favourite area of poetry, but this definitely makes me want to explore more of Wordsworth's work! ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Kelly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It's nice to have now read this defining work of English literature in its entirety. It's about as Romantic Era as it gets - full of shepherds, innocent children, bubbling brooks, and emotional walks in the lake country. The narrative poems were my favorite although there were some standout lyrical ones as well. I wouldn't reread the entire work over and over, but I have found some new favorites.

Favorites: "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," "We Are Seven," "Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman," "Lines Writte ...more

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Aug 29, 2020 Alexander Rubtsov rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“...If thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride,
Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,
Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man, whose eye
Is ever on himself, doth look on one,
The least of nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser thou!
Instru ...more

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Nov 13, 2017 Hoda Marmar rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: e-book

Very well written, but the themes were not interesting to me, so the rating is completely subjective.

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Oct 25, 2020 Salma Bk rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry

Lyrical Ballads ( Volume I) is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published in 1798. It is a collection that marked the beginning of English Romanticism in literature.
Ballade refers to a fixed-form medieval poem that originally represented `` dance songs '' dedicated mainly to popular society. It is a type of intangible cultural heritage joining folklore.
The main objective is to democratize the culture by trying to express oneself using everyday familiar lang ...more

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Apr 11, 2020 Mark rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I set out to approach this as a reader might have done in 1798. I realized, though, that I couldn't really do it; the way people thought about poetry then is so alien to how I think of it now, that it seemed impossible to put myself in an 18th century mindset and allow myself to be carried away with by the vibrant energy of early Romanticism. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading most of these poems, and I was occasionally struck by a brilliant line that gave me just a taste of how fresh and revolutio ...more

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Dec 20, 2018 Alison rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Meh meh meh I’m Wordsworth I speak for the noble peasant meh meh meh

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Jul 04, 2016 Cecilia H. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, 3-stars-and-a-half, reviewed-books

I give this small collection of poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge 3,5 stars. A few of the poems were a bit tedious and long for my taste but some really captured feelings and thoughts in a beautiful way. On the whole, I preferred Wordsworth's poems over Colderidge's, mainly because the latter used a more advanced and superior language which (in my case) distanced the reader from both the writer and what he was trying to say. My favorites from this collection are We Are Seven, The Thorn and The L
I give this small collection of poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge 3,5 stars. A few of the poems were a bit tedious and long for my taste but some really captured feelings and thoughts in a beautiful way. On the whole, I preferred Wordsworth's poems over Colderidge's, mainly because the latter used a more advanced and superior language which (in my case) distanced the reader from both the writer and what he was trying to say. My favorites from this collection are We Are Seven, The Thorn and The Last of the Flock. We Are Seven because of its meaning, The Last of the Flock earns a place in this category as well. And I really liked The Thorn because of the poignant and beautiful way it was written in.

I'll definitely read more of Wordsworth in the future and think that this short collection of both his and Coleridge's poems was a great start.

We Are Seven and The Thorn can both be found at Poetry Foundation, (but The Thorn was a bit too long to include here).

We Are Seven
by William Wordsworth
———A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
—Her beauty made me glad.

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.

“And where are they? I pray you tell.”
She answered, “Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

“Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.”

“You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.”

Then did the little Maid reply,
“Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.”

“You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five.”

“Their graves are green, they may be seen,”
The little Maid replied,
“Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,
And they are side by side.

“My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

“And often after sun-set, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

“The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

“So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

“And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.”

“How many are you, then,” said I,
“If they two are in heaven?”
Quick was the little Maid’s reply,
“O Master! we are seven.”

“But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!”
’Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, “Nay, we are seven!”

...more

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Feb 08, 2021 Annia Garzon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this text in the context of having just studied the surge of Romanticism in Europe and the relationship between German Romanticism and English Romanticism for a European Literature module at university. I state this because it definitely influenced my reading experience; not only was it the reason I got to know the text and had to pick it up in the first place, but it was also what shaped the way in which I understood and interpreted both the preface and the poems. The preface (which appe I read this text in the context of having just studied the surge of Romanticism in Europe and the relationship between German Romanticism and English Romanticism for a European Literature module at university. I state this because it definitely influenced my reading experience; not only was it the reason I got to know the text and had to pick it up in the first place, but it was also what shaped the way in which I understood and interpreted both the preface and the poems. The preface (which appeared until the second edition) is truly what shaped my understanding of the text, both of each poem individually and of the anthology as a paradigm shift in English literature and what many consider to be the Manifest of English Romanticism.

Wordsworth felt the need to add the preface to the book in order to give the readers at the time an introduction to a poetry that he felt and knew was different to the widely accepted literary canon of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He attributes this innovative nature of his poetry to the way in which the poems deal with topics that he considered to be of greater importance to humankind, far beyond the creative and imaginative restrictions of metric and genre. He believed his poetry to be breaking the expectations of fixed genre in poetry through a new use of language characterised by leaving behind the excessively sumptuous and adorned but “empty” phraseology which he attributed to the way the poets of his time, in his eyes, posed with intellectual and academic superiority. In an attempt to break this tradition, Wordsworth stated that he intended for his poems to revolve around and present everyday situations using everyday language in order to, with the use of imagination as a guiding light, unravel and show the beauty that is hidden in our ordinary lives, which is, according to him, obtained through the combination of the laws of nature and the emotion of the human spectator. This is why the poems he wrote for this collection centre on the topics of nature and a rural lifestyle. He stated that people who lived like this, mostly those of a lower socio-economical position, due to their proximity to nature and their living amongst “simple” objects, were able to experience and express human passions and feelings in a clearer and more natural way, free of any external bias that might blur the true human experience. Wordsworth believed this to be reflected in the use of simple, “rural”, language, which, according to him, wasn’t contaminated with unnecessary vanities, but rather closer to one’s life experience.

The poet stated that the purpose of his works in the collection was to illustrate how all of our feelings and ideas become connected when we reach a certain state of emotion. On this same line of thought, he believed that the poet (a person with an innate sensibility, beyond average) was a sort of translator who mediated in between the world of a “real” language that stimulates the passion of a lived experience, and the world of the language that a person can produce as a response to such passion. The poet, according to Wordsworth, is someone who can connect the world through pleasure; for he —in a very Romantic fashion— believed pleasure to be the ultimate end to both poetry and shared knowledge. “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” he states in the Preface in the same way he later exemplifies in his poems (especially those written in the first person and centring around the role of the poet). In this manifesto of English Romanticism, he not only proposed a new way of reading and criticism poetry that would change the course of literature and its canons forever but also stated an important view of his that truly reflected his own experience of the Romantic aesthetic: Wordsworth felt the need for art (specifically poetry) to be an imitation of lived experiences; he knew, however, that this was impossible given that, in his opinion, the language that poetry has at reach will always fall short to the greatness of life’s passions. He believes the poet should strive to get as close to this union of languages as possible; in a true Romantic manner, he searched for an unattainable absolute.

Maybe it was because I was so mesmerized by what he stated in the preface and how it seemed to reflect exactly the way in which I feel about nature and religion and forces far superior to humankind, but, after reading the entire work, I found that I was far more moved by Wordsworth’s poems than I was by Coleridge’s. I enjoyed the flow of the rhythm and metric, and the natural imagery that allowed me to imagine myself in the Lake District, sitting under the shade of an old tree, or, like Wordsworth wrote: “sit upon this old grey stone/ And dream my time away.” Amongst all the poems in the collection, I preferred the shorter ones because they felt as though the feelings, passions, and intensions of the poet were condensed into lines that were filled with deeper meaning and resulted in a beautiful choice of language that got amazingly close to communicating the language of experience that Wordsworth looked for. I have to make an exception amongst my favourites and add Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. I loved the following the story that this poem presented and was amazed by how it fits with the chosen metric and overall enjoyed it in a way I don’t typically enjoy Coleridge’s poems. I enjoyed finding gothic and fantastic elements yet feeling a deep sense of coherence throughout the entire piece. The symbolism was definitely transcendental as, after reading the poem, I have found intertextual references to its key elements in other major works of literature (like Shelley’s Frankenstein). One of my favourite themes throughout the collection was how the poems explored the condition of an irrational human (both collective and individual) existence and gave sense to it through the wisdom and beauty that, as stated in the works, are inert to nature. As a lover of writing and an aspiring writer and poet, I found myself to be inspired by the way the poems explored, as explained in the preface, the role of the poet as a mediator who finds beauty that they translate into poetry in places where other’s can’t spot it. It made me feel as though maybe every little thing that connects us to nature has a hidden verse or rhyme and, just maybe, I could one day carve it out.

For someone who is yet to read the collection I would definitely recommend reading the preface to the 1800 edition beforehand, for it will expand the reader’s views and understanding of the poems individually and as a series of collected works, and allow them to truly grasp the key points of English Romanticism that are established in this text. If looking for an extra nerdy read, I would recommend reading and doing a small research on Romanticism as a whole movement and its characteristics. Having the university module as a guiding axis for my read definitely allowed me to enjoy it more and to be able to come to my own conclusions, not only on this text but also upon the role it plays in relationship to German and French Romanticisms.

My favourite poems in the collection: Lines: Written at a Small Distance from My House and Sent by My Little Boy to the Person to Whom They Are Addressed; Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening; Expostulation and Reply; The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on the Same Subject.
...more

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Oct 03, 2016 Emily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very enjoyable, once I got into it. I think it's fair to say the poems improved as the book went on, perhaps because the later ones were written later when the poets themselves had developed. Wordsworth's Preface was very interesting, in which he states his intention to write "in the ordinary language of men" rather than fanciful "poetic diction", that is to say overblown language and dead metaphors. Sometimes he had great success in this; other times, less so. Wordsworth is criticised for being ...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Mark Bratkowski rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, british-literature

I've always shied away from reading poetry anthologies. Since this was a required text for my master's exam, I had no choice. I saved it for last, because I honestly wasn't sure if I would have the mental durability to get through it. Much to my surprise, I found most of the poems to be easily accessible, albeit, I took many notes to help me keep track of the narrative structure. All the poems have a rustic, backwoods, working class quality to them. Moreover, they celebrate the joys and power o ...more

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Jun 10, 2017 Abdullah rated it liked it · review of another edition

I liked some of these poems, and disliked others. You know what I'm saying? ...more

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Dec 08, 2017 Illiterate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The poems live up to the brilliance of the preface.

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Mar 25, 2021 Musa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, essentials

I love many of the poems in here. Tintern Abbey is beautiful, Idiot Boy is heartwarming, We Are Seven is profound, and The Rime of the Sea Mariner is probably one of my favorite works from the Romantic era.

But GOD, the haphazard sequencing of this book makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I love the cute and innocent poems as much as the dark and morose ones, but they are all arranged in the weirdest manner and it makes reading the book cover-to-cover such an annoying experience. It fee ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Diem rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've often scornfully resisted the "traditional" poets during the rare times that I would do more than dip into a volume of poetry. That was a mistake. "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere" (as it is spelled in my copy) by Coleridge was a revelation to me. I spent two full morning reading it over and over again.

Come to discover that my idea of traditional poetry was very mistaken. "Lyrical Ballads" represents a break with what had been traditional poetry in the late 18th century. The poems and the ...more

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Mar 26, 2020 Jacky Chan rated it liked it · review of another edition

A collection of poetry whose political, poetic, and aesthetic significance far outweighs the pleasure it brings to its reader. In a way Wordsworth has failed: he has not mapped out a 'state of vivid sensation' nor cultivated the soil for 'the essential passions of the heart'. But if his goal, as Nicholas Roe argues--and as his repeated emphasis on the 'strangeness and aukwardness' reading the Ballads should bring--is to enact a 'micro-revolution' within his reader's mind, then he has succeeded. ...more

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Oct 27, 2020 Shawn Enright rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I enjoy reading landmark pieces that are really accessible. Lyrical Ballads typifies that feeling. Wordsworth and Coleridge take poetry in new and interesting directions, and do so in ways that even a wimpy undergrad like me can notice and appreciate.

As someone who values content more than aesthetics, I especially loved the low and rustic form and content of the poems. Then, just to show that they’re heavyweights, Coleridge and Wordsworth include a poem like Rime of the Ancient Mariner — which ...more

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About William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

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William Wordsworth was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and publ ...more