Chapter IV Summary and Analysis

Coleridge discusses the works of William Wordsworth in this chapter. His works opened up a new school of poetry especially the Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge feels that these big works lend themselves to criticism. He says that the more the author writes, the more material the critic has to criticize.

Wordsworth's first publication occurred when Coleridge was in his last year of residence at Cambridge. Coleridge thought Wordsworth was a literary genius. They first met in Bristol when Coleridge was twenty-four years of age and this was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Coleridge quotes various parts of Wordsworth's works that he uses to make his points about the poet's genius and the way that Wordsworth's mind works. Coleridge believed that this could be deduced from the poet's poetry in terms of what he said and the words he used...