Synopses & Reviews
... must have come on like punk rock to a public groaning under the weight of over-cooked Augustanisms. The Guardian
The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure.
--William Wordsworth, from the Advertisement prefacing the original 1798 edition
When it was first published, Lyrical Ballads enraged the critics of the day: Wordsworth and Coleridge had given poetry a voice, one decidedly different to what had been voiced before. For Wordsworth, as he so clearly stated in his celebrated preface to the 1800 edition (also reproduced here), the important thing was the emotion aroused by the poem, and not the poem itself. This acclaimed Routledge Classics edition offers the reader the opportunity to study the poems in their original contexts as they appeared to Coleridge's and Wordsworth's contemporaries, and includes some of their most famous poems, including Coleridge's Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.
Synopsis
Originally put together by Wordsworth and Coleridge, this publication of English poetry, includes Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey".
Synopsis
A collection of poems exemplifying Romantic aesthetic ideals, whose unique beauty lies in their revolutionary exploration of the 'overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility', Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads is edited with a note on the text by Michael Schmidt in Penguin Classics.
Published in 1798, Lyrical Ballads is a dazzling collaboration containing twenty-three poems by close friends, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - two major figures of English Romanticism. The volume heralded a new approach to poetry and expresses the poets' reflections on mankind's relationship with the forces of the world. Coleridge's contribution includes the nightmarish vision of 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere', one of the works for which he became best known, as well as the fantastical conversational poem 'The Foster-Mother's Tale' and the melancholic 'The Nightingale'. Wordsworth's 'We are Seven' depicts a child's na ve optimism in the face of the cruel mortality, while 'Goody Blake and Harry Gill' and 'Simon Lee' celebrate the simplicity and strength he perceived in country people, and 'Tintern Abbey' explores the healing powers of nature.
This Penguin Classics edition allows readers to recapture the full impact and power of Lyrical Ballads. It also includes a note on the history of the text by Michael Schmidt.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) has been criticized as a political turn-coat, drug addict and plagiarist whose wrecked career left only a handful of magical early poems. But the shaping influence of his highly imaginative criticism is now generally accepted, and his position, along with that of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), as one of the two great progenitors of the English Romantic spirit is assured. A great innovator, Wordsworth permanently enlarged the range of English poetry both in subject matter and treatment.
If you enjoyed the Lyrical Ballads, you might like Wordsworth's Selected Poems, also available in Penguin Classics.
Synopsis
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 books original impact. In these poemsincluding Wordsworths Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey and Coleridges The Rime of the Ancyent Marinerethe two poets exercised new energies and opened up new themes.
About the Author
William Wordsworth (17701850) permanently enlarged the range of English poetry both in subject matter and treatment.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) is best known for his magical early poems and highly imaginative criticism.
Michael Schmidt is the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Lives of the Poets and the director of the writing school at Manchester Metropolitan University.