When the first edition of Wordworth's Lyrical Ballads was published, it was discovered that Wordsworth's poems were diametrically opposite to the standard poetical norms as preached and practiced by the Neo-classical poets like Ben Jonson, Dryden, Pope, Gray and Dr. Johnson. There was a sort of uproar in literary circles. Thereupon some of Wordsworth's friends advised him to publish a detailed preface to the second Edition of his Lyrical ballads explaining the basic tenets of his poetry. Wordsworth says, "they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the theory upon which the poems were written". Here he published a detailed preface to the second edition of his Lyrical Ballads.
In the preface Wordsworth begins with the precept that poetry should be a 'spontaneous overflow' of powerful feelings, not a laboured exercise. Secondly, the subject matter of poetry should be the life of the common men, because poets do not write their poetry for poets only, but for the common public to read and enjoy. For the same reason, poetry should be written, as far as possible, in the language of the common men, and not in the highly artificial and stilted poetic diction. There should be no difference between the language of prose and that of poetry. These are the basic tenets of Wordsworth's theory of poetry.
