Lyrical Ballads and other Poems', by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, stands as a monumental anthology in the annals of English literature, marking the dawn of the Romantic era. The collection is revered for its exploration of the rustic life and the profundity of ordinary experiences, conveyed through a rich tapestry of lyrical styles and emotional depth. This anthology is significant not only for its aesthetic achievements but also for the included prose discussing the poets' revolutionary principles on poetry, offering invaluable insights into their creative ethos. The contributing poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge, are titans of English literature whose backgrounds reflect a deep engagement with the natural world, human emotion, and philosophical inquiry. Their collective efforts in this anthology embody the essence of Romanticism, emphasizing emotion, individualism, and the sublime beauty of the natural world. The fusion of their unique perspectives creates a multifaceted exploration of the human condition, expanding the horizons of poetic expression and thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This anthology is a must-read for enthusiasts of English literature, providing a unique opportunity to immerse in the revolutionary visions of Coleridge and Wordsworth. Readers are invited to explore the depths of Romantic poetry, its underpinning philosophies, and its enduring impact on the landscape of literary history. Engaging with this collection promises not just educational value, but a profound personal journey through the heart of human experience as seen through the eyes of two of literatures greatest poets.

Lyrical Ballads, two collections of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but they became and remain 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 five poems to the collection, including one of his most famous works, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". A second edition was published in 1800, in which Wordsworth included additional poems and a preface detailing the pair's avowed poetical principles. Contents: Anima Poetae (By Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Essays, Letters, and Notes about the Principles of Poetry (By William Wordsworth) LYRICAL BALLADS, WITH A FEW OTHER POEMS (1798) LYRICAL BALLADS, WITH OTHER POEMS (1800) Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. William Wordsworth (1770 –1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).

Wordsworth & Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems represents a seminal watershed in English literature, marking the dawn of Romanticism with its fervent embrace of nature, emotion, and the individual's interior world. This collection masterfully demonstrates a wide array of literary styles, from the simplicity and directness of the rural ballad to complex meditations on human and natural worlds. It pulses with the radical energy of its time, challenging Enlightenment rationalism and foreshadowing a century deeply concerned with personal and social liberation. The standout pieces defy traditional poetic norms of the era, making the anthology a historic pivot towards modern poetic sensibility. The diverse backgrounds of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though both pivotal figures of the Romantic movement, bring a rich interplay of themes and stylistic approaches to the anthology. Their joint effort not only signifies a close intellectual and artistic collaboration but also reflects the broader historical, cultural, and literary currents of late 18th and early 19th centuries. The melding of Wordsworth's profound connection with nature and Coleridge's innovative symbolic imagination creates a multidimensional exploration of the human condition and our relationship with the natural world. This anthology is an indispensable treasure for readers seeking to immerse themselves in the genesis of Romanticism. It offers a unique lens through which to explore pivotal literary innovations and themes of the era. As such, it beckons not only students and scholars of English literature but anyone intrigued by the transformative power of poetry and its ability to wrestle with timeless questions through the beauty of language. The collection stands as a testament to the enduring relevance and dynamism of Wordsworth and Coleridge's visionary work.

This accessible collection of essays provides an essential introduction to the volume of poetry that defined British Romanticism.

Brimming with poetry, art, and nature writing—Wordsworth and Coleridge as you've never seen them before June 1797 to September 1798 is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and “Kubla Khan,” as well as his unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, and William Wordsworth’s revolutionary songs in Lyrical Ballads along with “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth's paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. In The Making of Poetry, Adam Nicolson embeds himself in the reality of this unique moment, exploring the idea that these poems came from this particular place and time, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood. The poetry Wordsworth and Coleridge made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they embarked, thinking of poetry as a challenge to all received ideas, stripping away the dead matter, looking to shed consciousness and so change the world. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures seen not as literary monuments but as young men, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths toward it. The artist Tom Hammick accompanied Nicolson for much of the year, making woodcuts from the fallen timber in the park at Alfoxden where the Wordsworths lived. Interspersed throughout the book, his images bridge the centuries, depicting lives at the source of our modern sensibility: a psychic landscape of doubt and possibility, full of beauty and thick with desire for a kind of connectedness that seems permanently at hand and yet always out of reach.

Where others have oriented Wordsworth towards ideas of transcendence, nature worship, or - more recently - political repression, Paul H. Fry argues that underlying all this is a more fundamental insight - Wordsworth is most astonished not that the world he experiences has any particular qualities, but rather that it simply exists.