Discuss the purpose of "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads
helps to articulate and identify what Romanticism, as a movement, is.  It is
a declaration of sorts of what Wordsworth and Coleridge believe to be the defining
elements of Romanticism.  The movement is articulated in the writing so that there is a
clear understanding of how one can both write in the Romantic style and recognize it in
other writing.  For example, when Wordsworth and Coleridge write that the subject or
nature of poetry is driven by "incidents and situations from common life," it helps to
bring out the idea that Romanticism is about the world around the individual.  Anything
can have poetic value and it is upon the shoulders of the poet to make the smallest and
most insignificant item possess poetic importance.  The Preface
talks about elements such as this in terms of outlining the parameters of
Romanticism according to Wordsworth and Coleridge.  It is important to note that much of
what was featured in the Preface flew in the face of traditional
conventions, and was especially challenged by those who followed the Neoclassical school
of thought.  It was essential that the new movement of Romanticism be defined in as
clear and direct of a manner as possible and the Preface was an attempt to do just
that.