William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

Stephen Van-Hagen (University of Coventry)
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Lyrical Ballads, with a few other poems,

one of the most influential volumes of poetry in English literary history – and often regarded as the defining achievement of ‘first generation’ Romanticism – first appeared, anonymously, in October 1798. It was the product of a collaboration between William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), two men who met when Wordsworth, wandering the country following his enforced separation from Annette Vallon and their daughter Caroline, came across Coleridge preaching radical philosophy in rooms above the Corn Exchange in Bristol in August 1795. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy subsequently moved in to Alfoxden House, four miles from Coleridge’s residence at Nether Stowey, Somerset, in June 1797 and the poems were…

2746 words

Citation: Van-Hagen, Stephen. "Lyrical Ballads". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 May 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3790, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3790 Lyrical Ballads 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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