From Biographica Literaria, Chapter 14
During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our
conversations 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 imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of
light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set 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 excellence 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. And real
in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever
source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural
agency. 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.
In this idea originated the plan of the "Lyrical Ballads;" in which it was
agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters
supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward
nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for
these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the
moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand,
was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to
things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the
supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of
custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world
before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence of the
film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears
that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.
With this view I wrote the "Ancient Mariner," and was preparing
among other poems, the "Dark Ladie," and the "Christabel," in
which I should have more nearly realized my ideal, than I had
done in my first attempt....
