William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770–1850), probably the greatest of the poets of the Romantic Movement in England, was also foremost in the critical defence of that movement. The Prefaces and Essays printed here form a kind of manifesto of the reaction from the poetical traditions of the eighteenth century; and contain besides some of the soundest theorizing on the nature of poetry to be found in English. They afford an interesting comparison with the parallel protest in Victor Hugo’s Preface to “Cromwell,” to be found later in the volume.

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Preface to Lyrical Ballads

Appendix to Lyrical Ballads

Preface to Poems

Essay Supplementary to Preface