The collection of lyric songs announced the birth of romantic new poetry. Wordsworth elaborated the theory of romantic new poetry in the preface of the second edition of Lyric Ballads Collection (1800), and advocated writing ordinary people's affairs, thoughts and feelings in their own language, which was regarded as the declaration of romantic poetry. Since then, Wordsworth's poems have been further developed in depth and breadth, with profound meanings in describing natural scenery and ordinary people's affairs, as well as philosophical thinking on self-reflection and life exploration. The long poem Overture, which was completed in 1805 and published in 1850, is his most representative work.
The first real masters of English romanticism were three poets called "lake poets", who were also representatives of negative romanticism. Poet William? William wordsworth (1770- 1850) and Samuel? Samuel taylor coleridge and Robert? Southey (1774- 1843) once lived in Cumberland Lake District in northwest England. They have many similarities in their thoughts and creative theories, so they are called "lake poets". Lake poets's three poets, with memories of medieval patriarchal rural life, are the representatives of tenderness and beauty in romantic literature. These poets held an ambivalent attitude towards the French Revolution, expressed disgust at capitalist industrial civilization and urban civilization, tried their best to eulogize rural life and nature under the patriarchal clan system, and liked to describe mysterious and bizarre scenes and exotic scenery. Wordsworth is the most accomplished poet among the lake poets. He and Coleridge, another poet of "lake poets", published A Collection of Lyric Songs, which became the cornerstone of English romantic literature. Most of the poems in Selected Works were written by Wordsworth, and Coleridge's famous poems Ode to the Ancient Ship and Kublai Khan were also included, which were full of fantasy and absurd images.