Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Sajida Parveen • Wordsworth explains that the first edition of Lyrical Ballads was published as a sort of experiment to test the public reception of poems that use “the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation.” • Wordsworth notes that he was initially unwilling to write the preface as some sort of systemic defense of this new genre, because he doesn’t want to reason anyone into liking these poems. He also says the motives behind starting this new genre of poetry are too complex to fully articulate in so few words. Still, he has decided to furnish a preface: his poems are so different from the poems of his age that they require at least a brief explanation as to their conception.From this, readers can gather that Wordsworth lived in an era when things were growing increasingly complex with the onset of modernity. • • Wordsworth claims that just as authors have a right to use certain ideas and techniques, they also have a right to exclude other ideas and techniqu...