The Romantic thinking was influenced by the ideas upon poet and poetry sustained by three of the greatest writers of the age: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Byshe Shelley.

In the Preface of the second edition of Lyrical Ballads Wordworth sustained that the poet "is a man speaking to men- a man (it is true) endued with more sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has greater knowledge of human nature, and more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be the common among mankind"; a man who can delight other men in the spirit of life."

The poetry has a purpose: "Not that I mean to say that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived, but I also believe that my habits have so formed my feelings, as that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings will be found to...