The document discusses the Romantic Age in literature and the work of William Wordsworth. It notes that Aristotle did not classify literature as Classical vs. Romantic, but over time it became clear great literature could exist outside of Aristotelian rules. Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who helped launch the Romantic movement with his Lyrical Ballads, which declared poetry comes from recording spontaneous feelings and is "emotion recollected in tranquility".

1. Romantic Age

2. • The use of the term Romantic itself in the description of a
certain kind of literature signified a development in criticism
for which we do not find any precedent in Aristotle. Aristotle
did not think of dividing literature into Classical and
Romantic. He was concerned with qualities which made for
good writing. But this is no longer adequate. For the
experience of the centuries following Aristotle's time showed
that, even great literature, could be produced outside of the
contexts of Aristotelian rules. The two main types
distinguished then are Classical and Romantic, one in which
order and measure, conformity with tradition and restraint are
emphasized and the other marked by imaginative exuberance
and emotional excess. Writers who belong to the second group
try to break new group whenever necessary regardless of
whether their innovations are in conformity with past practice.

3. William Wordsworth

4. • Wordsworth wad a major English Romantic poet who, with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in
English literature.
• Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems generally considered to
have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement
in literature.
• The Preface to Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of
Romantic literary theory.
• The Lyrical Ballads was a manifesto for a radically new
approach to the writing of poetry. Wordsworth declared that the
most important thing in poetry was the poet's ability to record
his spontaneous feelings. Poetry, he said, was "emotion
recollected in tranquility".

5. • Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as "
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility".
• Wordsworth's views about the valid language of poetry
are based on the new premise that "all good poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" --
spontaneous, that is, at the moment of composition, even
though the process is influenced by prior thought and
acquired poetic skill.

6. • Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as "
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility".
• Wordsworth's views about the valid language of poetry
are based on the new premise that "all good poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" --
spontaneous, that is, at the moment of composition, even
though the process is influenced by prior thought and
acquired poetic skill.