Preface to Lyrical Ballads

Classicism refers to the principles or styles characteristic of the art of ancient Greece and Rome, or these principles and styles as imitated in later periods of art and literature. Among the perceived principles of classical art are simplicity, reposeful order, balance, and emotional restraint. 18th-century literature is often described as neo-classical in spirit. Toward the end of the century, Romanticists like Wordsworth and Coleridge began a reaction against classicist standards, especially as these were perceived as being too rule-bound and detached from the world of everyday life, especially the life of the common people. 

Meter is the arrangement of words in rhythmic lines in poetry. In Wordsworth’s time, it was generally assumed that poetry would adhere to established, regular metrical schemes and patterns such as iambic, dactylic, etcetera.

Wordsworth believes that his poetry will interest the public by virtue of “the multiplicity and quality of its moral relations” (14). He states this idea twice, toward the beginning and at the conclusion of the essay. Wordsworth was concerned in much of his poetry with how the natural environment could teach moral lessons and heal society of its ills and injustices, exemplified for him in the events of the French Revolution.