Which were the two literary trends in the Victorian period?

1. associated with intellectual production; the need for objectivity, standard of balance and precision (Robert Browning)
2. idealistic, spontaneous; direct continuation of romanticism; the cult of beauty; sympathy with emotions (lord Alfred Tennyson)

Victorian poetry:

• – nostalgic sentiments for the Middle Ages
• – religious scepticism
• – concerned with the search of identity, meaning of life
• – respect for romantics
• – the duty of the poet is to present the world around him and not his own soul (Restoration period)
• – poetry is deliberately didactic
• – one of the distinctive poetic forms is the dramatic monologue (origins are perhaps in Elizabethan drama)