Lyrical Ballads

📅 1798 ✏️ William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 📖 J. & A. Arch 📚 2nd edition 1800 (with Wordsworth's Preface); 3rd edition 1802

Romanticism18th CenturyFounding TextManifestoEnglish

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798), by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is widely regarded as the founding text of English Romanticism. Its 1800 second edition included Wordsworth's Preface, often called the manifesto of the Romantic movement, which argued for poetry written in the 'real language of men.'

Overview

Published anonymously in 1798 by J. & A. Arch, Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems was a joint collection by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though technically a co-authored collection rather than a curated anthology of multiple poets, its editorial vision and manifesto-like framing make it foundational to how English poetry anthologies would later be conceived.

The first edition contained 23 poems, including Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and several of Wordsworth's most significant early works, such as Tintern Abbey. The collection deliberately favoured plain, direct language over the ornate poetic diction fashionable in the late 18th century.

The 1800 Preface

The second edition (1800), expanded to two volumes, included Wordsworth's famous Preface — an extended essay arguing that poetry should be written in "the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation" and should draw its subjects from "incidents and situations from common life." This Preface is widely considered the founding manifesto of English Romanticism.

Historical Significance

Lyrical Ballads marks the conventional starting point of the English Romantic movement in literary history. It represented a deliberate rejection of Augustan poetic convention — ornate diction, mythological allusion, and aristocratic subject matter — in favour of accessible language and democratic subject matter drawn from rural and common life.

The collection's influence on subsequent English poetry, and on how poets and anthologists thought about the purpose and audience of verse, is difficult to overstate. It effectively redefined what poetry could be about and who it could be for.

Legacy

Every major anthology of Romantic poetry begins its narrative with Lyrical Ballads. Its influence on Percy's ballad revival being carried forward, and its manifesto-driven approach to poetic collection, established a template that later anthologists — from thematic collections to movement-defining volumes like Donald Allen's New American Poetry — would consciously follow.

Related Anthologies

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, The New American Poetry

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Lyrical Ballads?

Lyrical Ballads (1798), by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is widely regarded as the founding text of English Romanticism. Its 1800 edition included Wordsworth's Preface, a manifesto arguing for poetry in plain, direct language drawn from everyday life.

Why is Lyrical Ballads considered the start of Romanticism?

It marked a deliberate break from 18th-century Augustan poetic convention, favouring plain language and common subject matter. Wordsworth's 1800 Preface explicitly articulated this new poetic philosophy, making the collection a manifesto as much as an anthology.

Last updated: 2026-07-01