ABSTRACT
During the first year Mr. Wordsworth and author were neighbors, their conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry. The two points are power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The thought suggested itself that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural. The excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed, that the author's endeavor should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic.
