Lyrical Ballads by Unlikely Lads 200 Years Ago Wordsworth and Coleridge Revolutionised Poetry. Now What? Asks William Scammell

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Two hundred years ago, in September 1798, a couple of unknowns published a book of poems, in the hope of raising a bit of ready cash. It was ushered into the world not by a smart London publisher but by a small regional one in Bristol. And it was anonymous. So apart from a few close friends nobody knew who had written it for, as Coleridge said to Wordsworth: "You're unknown and my name stinks." So Lyrical Ballads slid quietly into a few bookshops and revolutionised poetry for the next 100 years and more.

One revolution was announced in its title, which fuses together two distinct genres, the lyric, which usually implies love and something song-like in the delivery, and …