Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 21 October 1772 - 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets.

This may be linked with the sentiments spreading through Europe just prior to the French Revolution. Wordsworth subscribed to Rousseau's belief that humanity was essentially good but was corrupted by the influence of society. One of the main themes of 'Lyrical Ballads' is the return to the original state of nature, in which people led a purer and more innocent existence. If the experiment with vernacular language was not enough of a departure from the norm, the focus on simple, uneducated country people as the subject of poetry was a signal shift to modern literature. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure.

In the 'Advertisement' included in the 1798 edition, Wordsworth explained his poetical concept: The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. Even the title of the collection recalls rustic forms of art - the word 'lyrical' links the poems with the ancient rustic bards and lends an air of spontaneity, while 'ballads' are an oral mode of storytelling used by the common people. Using this language also helps assert the universality of human emotions. They place an emphasis on the vitality of the living voice that the poor use to express their reality. A second edition was published in 1800, in which Wordsworth included additional poems and a preface detailing the pair's avowed poetical principles.For another edition, published in 1802, Wordsworth added an appendix titled Poetic Diction in which he expanded the ideas set forth in the preface.Wordsworth and Coleridge set out to overturn what they considered the priggish, learned and highly sculpted forms of 18th century English poetry and bring poetry within the reach of the average person by writing the verses using normal, everyday language. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth, with Coleridge contributing only four poems to the collection, including one of his most famous works, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature.The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature and poetry.

1798 lyrical ballads