It is a work of literary criticism in which the poet explains his own theory about how his poetry developed and about how Romantic poetry should be in his opinion.

However the text is not a manifesto of Romanticism; the only manifesto is the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

Coleridge and Wordsworth were neighbours and they frequently discussed about the two basic points of poetry:

- to render poetry in a way so that the poet can involve the reader in the same feelings he has. In order to do this the poet has to present things as they really are in nature ("faithful adherence to the truth of nature")

- to present things in a new way "by the modifying colours of imagination"

The poems which express the two points are called by Coleridge the "poetry of nature"

Coleridge and Wordsworth wrote two different kind of poetry:

- COLERIDGE: events and agents have to be, in part at least, supernatural (it means that they cannot be explained). The supernatural must be communicated as if it where real. The use of imagination evokes feelings that are similar to the ones you feel in real life, thus what made the supernatural real was the kind of feelings and emotions.

- WORDSWORTH: events and agents have to be taken from ordinary life, the poet describes ordinary things as of they were supernatural (transfiguration). 

After that Coleridge explains how the idea of the Lyrical Ballads was born:

-he thought that he should speak about supernatural or at least romantic characters and he wants to perceive his aim transferring "from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith".

It means that the reader has to believe in what the poet says, if the reader does not retain truth what he reads, the pact between text and reader isn't established.

- Wordsworth wanted to tell about events from everyday life exciting feelings similar to the supernatural by "awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of customs". Lethargy means that a person does not have an active relation with life and reality; it underlines a passive attitude in front of life.

As a consequence of the lethargy people are not able really to see, to hear and to feel. The use of the perception verbs emphasizes the inability to control these actions.

Moreover Coleridge provides the reader with his idea about the role of the poet:

the poet is a person who is able to make the different parts of the human being communicate so he is able to integrate elements that are apparently incompatible and opposite and he is able to do that thanks to the power of Imagination.