Wordsworth’s Views of Poetry and the PoetThe extract of Preface to Lyrical Ballads from William Wordsworth, is a manifesto, so a literary criticism, where the poet makes a declaration of intention.

There are four perspective for the analysis of  the manifesto:

·        The subject matter of the poetry: Poetry should deal with incidents and situations from common life;

·        The language of poetry: Poetry should use familiar language really used by men, but at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way;

·        The poet’s identity: The poet is a man speaking to other men who has a great knowledge  of human nature and a more comprehensive soul;

·        The creative act of the poet: The creative process starts from an emotion which is gradually produced and makes itself exist in the mind.