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Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other
Poems is a collection of poems by William
Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first
published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the
beginning of the English Romantic movement
in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it
became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English
literature and poetry.
Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by
Wordsworth, with Coleridge contributing only four poems to the
collection, including one of his most famous works, "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner". (Additionally, although it is only the two writers
that are credited for the works, William's sister Dorothy
Wordsworth influenced William's poetry immensely because he
studied her diary which held powerful descriptions of everyday
surroundings).[1]
A second edition was published in 1800, in which Wordsworth
included additional poems and a preface detailing the
pair's avowed poetical principles. Another edition was published in
1802, Wordsworth added an appendix titled Poetic Diction
in which he expanded the ideas set forth in the preface.
Content
Wordsworth and Coleridge set out to overturn what they
considered the priggish, learned and highly sculpted forms of
eighteenth century English poetry and bring poetry within the reach
of the average person by writing the verses using normal, everyday
language. They place an emphasis on the vitality of the living
voice that the poor use to express their reality. Using this
language also helps point out the universality of human emotions.
Even the title of the collection recalls rustic forms of art - the
word "lyrical" links the poems with the ancient rustic bards and
lends an air of spontaneity, while "ballads" are an oral mode of
storytelling used by the common people.
In his famous "Preface"
(1800, revised 1802) Wordsworth explained his poetical concept:
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 purpose of poetic pleasure.[2]
If the experiment with vernacular language was not enough of a
departure from the norm, the focus on simple, uneducated country
people as the subject of poetry was a signal shift to
modern literature. One of the main themes of "Lyrical Ballads" is
the return to the original state of nature, in which people led a
purer and more innocent existence. Wordsworth subscribed to Rousseau's belief that humanity was
essentially good but was corrupted by the influence of society.
This may be linked with the sentiments spreading through Europe
just prior to the French Revolution.
Although the lyrical ballads is a collaborative work, only four
of the poems in it are by Coleridge. Coleridge devoted much of his
time to crafting 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' Many of
Coleridge's poems were unpopular with the audience and with fellow
writer Wordsworth due to their macabre or supernatural nature.
Poems
in the 1800 edition
Volume I
- Expostulation and Reply↨
- The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same s
- Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a
Sketch
- The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman↨
- The Last of the Flock↨
- Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake
of Esthwaite↨
- The Foster-Mother's Tale↨ ↑
- Goody Blake and Harry Gill↨
- The Thorn↨
- We are
Seven↨
- Anecdote for
Fathers↨
- Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by
my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
↨
- The Female Vagrant↨
- The Dungeon↨ ↑
- Simon Lee, the old Huntsman↨
- Lines written in early Spring↨
- The Nightingale, written in April, 1798.↨
↑
- Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
↨
- written near Richmond, upon the Thames↨
- The Idiot
Boy↨
- Love↑
- The Mad Mother↨
- The Rime of the Ancyent
Marinere↨ ↑
- Lines written above Tintern
Abbey↨
↑ indicates the poem is by Coleridge
↨ indicates the poem was in the 1798 edition.
|
Volume II
- Hart-leap Well
- There was a Boy, &c
- The Brothers, a Pastoral Poem
- Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle
- Strange fits of
passion have I known, &c.
- Song
- She
Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
- A slumber did
my spirit seal, &c
- The Waterfall and the Eglantine
- The Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral
- Lucy Gray
- The Idle Shepherd-Boys or Dungeon-Gill Force, a Pastoral
- 'Tis said that some have died for love, &c.
- Poor Susan
- Inscription for the Spot where the Hermitage stood on St.
Herbert's Island, Derwent-Water
- Inscription for the House (an Out-house) on the Island at
Grasmere
- To a Sexton
- Andrew Jones
- The two Thieves, or the last stage of Avarice
- A whirl-blast from behind the Hill, &c.
- Song for the wandering Jew
- Ruth
- Lines written with a Slate-Pencil upon a Stone, &c.
- Lines
written on a Tablet in a School
- The two
April Mornings
- The
Fountain, a conversation
- Nutting
- Three years
she grew in sun and shower, &c.
- The Pet-Lamb, a Pastoral
- Written in Germany on one of the coldest days of the
century
- The Childless Father
- The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description
- Rural Architecture
- A Poet's Epitaph
- A Character
- A Fragment
- Poems on the Naming of Places,
- Michael, a
Pastoral
|
The poems The Convict (Wordsworth) and Love
(Coleridge) were in the 1798 edition but Wordsworth omitted them
from the 1800 edition. Lewti or the Circassian Love-chaunt
(Coleridge) exists in some 1798 editions in place of The
Nightingale.
References
- ^
Newlyn, Lucy. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and
the Language of Allusion, Oxford University Press, 2001;
ISBN 9780199242597
- ^
"Lyrical Ballads". The
Wordsworth Trust. 2005. http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/history/index.asp?pageid=123. Retrieved
2006-03-18.
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