The idea was revolutionary and controversial at the time because poetry then was considered a higher art form with strict standards and requirements for formal style as well as intellectually 'worthy' subject matters.

In other words, Coleridge was to make the unbelievable believable while Wordsworth endeavored to make the usual unusual, both through the application of human emotions and imagination to poetry. Wordsworth was to contribute poems about ordinary everyday life, but colored with imagination to give them novelty and excite a feeling of wonder. Coleridge was to write poems involving the supernatural or the romantic, but portrayed with such true emotions as to promote suspension of disbelief. Lyrical Ballads was planned by the two poets, who were close friends at the time, as a collaboration featuring two types of poems based on the same poetic principles. The third edition, Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and Other Poems, was published in 1802 followed by the last authorized edition in 1805. The second volume consisted solely of poems written by Wordsworth, including four out of the five famous 'Lucy poems.' The second edition also added a Preface in which Wordsworth introduced his poetic theories. The small book contained twenty-three poems four by Coleridge, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the rest by Wordsworth, including 'Tintern Abbey'.Īn expanded edition, Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, was published in two volumes in 1800 under Wordsworth's name. It was first published anonymously in September 1798 as Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems.

Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems by the English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Title page from Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1978).

Preface of the lyrical ballads