ABSTRACT
The Advertisement prefixed to Lyrical Ballads, with a few other poems in 1798 implies that this is intended to be avant-garde literature, poetry pushing out to new frontiers, The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. The reviewer in The British Critic, possibly Francis Wrangham, was the most perceptive of the formal critics. The address to the reader continues this anti-sentimental process, which is completed in the clear-sighted conclusion, avoiding any hint of a cliche moral and requiring active interpretation by the instructed and perceptive reader. Tintem Abbey' is a majestic poem, but it is conceptually a consciously evasive one. Most of the 1800 volume was composed after Wordsworth's return to the Lake District at the end of 1799. Literary allusion plays a crucial role in the poem. Wordsworth greatly admired Burns's work, and the description of cottage life clearly recalls 'The Cotter's Saturday Night'.
