This first edition consists of nineteen poems by Wordsworth and four by Coleridge. 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. Wordsworth performs his task ably, endowing his simple people with full humanity, evoking our pity on their behalf. By so doing, they hoped to invigorate the pastoral, dignify the gothic, and create something new as well.

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). 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. 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.

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth