In the _Biographia
Literaria_ the origination of the plan of the work is thus
described:--
"During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours our
conversation turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry,
the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful
adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest
of novelty by the modifying colours of the imagination. The sudden
charm which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset
diffused over a known and familiar landscape appeared to represent the
practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The
thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a
series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one the
incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and
the interest aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the
affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally
accompany such situations, supposing them real.... For the second
class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters
and incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its
vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after
them, or to notice them when they present themselves.
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