Letteratura inglese - Lyrical ballads

Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads

Why this title?

Lyrical refers to lyrics. They show the most interior and subjective feelings of the author. Wordsworth is more lyrical than narrative, emphasizing personal feelings.

Ballad refers to the Middle Ages ballad. Romantic writers turned to the Middle Ages because of its irrational air, which contrasted with the Augustan age. Ballads were a kind of narrative songs that were performed out loud.

It underlines the sense of "a man speaking to men." Coleridge is more narrative than lyrical, focusing on universal matters.

In the Augustan age, these two genres were well known, but no one had ever put them side by side. By reading the title, we can already discover a literary companionship, even though these poets have different styles, they work side by side.

It is a declaration of intent, a manifesto. They are publishing something different, something that appears bizarre and funny, as indicated in the title. The poets are already challenging the norms and expectations of their time.

level.In the middle of these 2 levels, there is theIt means the level ofthe man, who thank to his sensibility can spread his experiences to people, to the ones he is speaking with.

Lyrical Ballads1798 The First publication of coincides with the Birth of Romantic writing.

Main ideas of Romanism in “Lyrical Ballads” Advertisement,

The collection of poems is prefaced by a short in which we can underline some basic elementsof the romantic movementsuch as: elevation of Poetry- : Prose, and mainly philosophical prose, was used to spread one’s ideas.It was considered the more accessible communications medium.In point of fact it was not such easy to get to. In reality the language used washigh toned and complicated, so that only aristocrats could read it.subjects:-common they write about everything can interest the reader such ashuman passions, human incidents, human characters”“(last lines of the Advertisement)It means that they start to write about common

People lifestyle. If in the past knowledge was related just to the upper class, now these poets refer also to a middle class reality.