The emotion, imagination and complexity of Worth and Coleridge The 19th century was heralded by a great change in the conception and emphasis of literary art and, in particular, poetry. In the eighteenth century the slogan of literature and art was reason. Logic and rationality took precedence in every form of written expression. Ideas of validity and aesthetic beauty centered on concepts such as the collective "we" and the eradication of passion in human behavior. In 1798 all these ideas about literature were challenged by the publication of Lyrical Ballads, which contained the poetry of Williamworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Worth and Coleridge both had strong, and sometimes conflicting, opinions about what constituted well-written poetry. Their ideas centered on the origins of poetry in the poet and the role of poetry in the world, and these theoretical concepts led to the creation of poetry complex enough to support a wide variety of critical readings in a modern context. Wordsworth wrote a preface to Lyrical Ballads in which he sets out his ideas on poetry. His conception of poetry is based on three main premises. Worth states that poetry is the language of the common man: To this knowledge which all men carry with them, and to these sympathies in which with no other discipline than that of our daily lives we are fitted to take pleasure, the poet chiefly directs his attention. (149) Poetry should be understandable to anyone living in the world. Worth avoids the use of high and poetic diction, which in his mind is unrelated to real-life language. For him, poetry acts like Nature, which touches all living beings, inspires them and delights them. Worth calls for poetry to be written in the language of the "common man" and for the poems' subjects to be accessible to all individuals regardless of class or position. Worth also emphasizes that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it originates from the emotion collected in tranquility" (151). These two points form the basis of Forworth's explanation of the process of writing poetry. First, some experiences trigger a transcendent moment, an instance of the sublime. The senses are overwhelmed by this experience; the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" leaves an individual unable to articulate the true nature and beauty of the event.