Publication of Lyrical Ballads
- When
- 1798
- Where
- Unknown
- Episodes
- 1
Lyrical Ballads was first published in 1798 as a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The work is generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature.
Episodes
Background and detail
Initial Publication. The collection, titled Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, was first published in 1798. It contained nineteen poems by Wordsworth and four by Coleridge. The 1798 edition included an 'Advertisement' where Wordsworth explained his poetical concept.
Poetic Intent. Wordsworth and Coleridge aimed to overturn the highly sculpted forms of 18th-century English poetry. They sought to make poetry accessible to the average person by using common, everyday language in their verse.
Author Contributions. Most poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth. Coleridge contributed four poems, which comprised about a third of the book's length, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
People involved
- William Wordsworth · Co-author
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge · Co-author
Sources
- Lyrical Ballads Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.