Key Ideas

• Response to rationalization of Nature
• Poetry and the use of the language of the middle and lower classes

The principle aim of the collection of poetry known as ‘Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems’ was to serve as an experiment. The world in which this movement took place was in a state of revolution. Much like the Romantic period as a whole, is was a rebellion against the established norms of the time. Why should poetry be reserved for the educated elite? Furthermore, why should nature be over analysed to the point that we no longer respect it for what it is capable of? Wordsworth’s collection, which is thought to have been the beginning point of the period, characterizes nature in both beautiful and terrible terms of power. In doing so, much of the poetry appeals to the emotions of the audience. It was attempt to ascertain understand the degree to which the “real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted.”