CONTENTS. PAGE I The Motives of the Present Work Reception of the Author's First Publication — Discipline of his Taste at School - The Effect of Contemporary Writers upon Youthful Minds - Bowles's Sonnets CHAPTER II. (BIOG. LIT. III.). The Author's Obligations to Critics, and the Probable Occasion CHAPTER III. (BIOG. LIT. IV.). The Lyrical Ballads, with the Preface - Mr. Wordsworth's Earlier CHAPTER IV. (BIOG. LIT. Xiv.). Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the Objects originally proposed CHAPTER V. (BIOG. LIT. Xv.). The Specific Symptoms of Poetic Power elucidated in a Critical PAGE 57 CHAPTER VI. (BIOG. LIT. XVI.). Striking Points of Difference between the Poets of the Present Age and those of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries- Wish expressed for the Union of the Characteristic Merits of Both. CHAPTER VII. (BIOG. LIT. XVII.) 66 Examination of the Tenets peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth - Rustic Life (above all, Low and Rustic Life) especially Unfavourable to the Formation of a Human Diction - The Best Parts of Language the Products of Philosophers, not of Clowns or Shepherds— Poetry essentially Ideal and Generic - The Language of Milton as much the Language of Real Life, yea, incomparably more so, than that of the Cottager \ CHAPTER VIII. (BIOG. LIT. XVIII.). Language of Metrical Composition, why and wherein essentially CHAPTER IX. (BIOG. LIT. Xix.). Continuation-Concerning the Real Object which it is probable Mr. Wordsworth had before him in his Critical Preface - Elucidation and Application of this 72 88 115 CHAPTER X. (BIOG. LIT. XX.). The Former Subject continued - The Neutral Style, or that Common to Prose and Poetry, exemplified by Specimens from Chaucer, Herbert, and Others CHAPTER XI. (BIOG. LIT. XxI.). Remarks on the Present Mode of conducting Critical Journals. CHAPTER XII. (BIOG. LIT. xxii.). PAGE 124 The Characteristic Defects of Mr. Wordsworth's Poetry, with the CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES REFERENCES 144 |