Victorian poetry and religious diversityparticularly Christian act, one in which "the idea of beauty and of a human
nature perfect on all sides" formed "the dominant idea of poetry," a "true
and invaluable idea" that in his view was "destined, adding to itself the
religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern the other." 18
Although Arnold tended to emphasize the importance of poetry in
relation to the arts, classical literature, and the world of university life,
other contexts for producing poetry also became visible in this period. If we
return to our comparison with the sixteenth century, we find quite radical
changes in education, literary culture, and publishing that transformed the
ways in which poetry, including overtly religious poetry, was produced and
received. As Richard D. Altick reminds us: "Victorian literature was a
product of the first age of mass communication." 19 "By the end of the
century," he adds, "English publishing had undergone a revolution. From a
sleepy, unimportant trade whose practices differed little from those pre-
vailing in Shakespeare's time it had grown into a bustling business, as
inventive, competitive, and specialized as any other branch of Victorian
commerce." 20 With perhaps the exception of the Poet Laureate, Victorian
poets were for the most part no longer supported by the court or by upper-
class patrons. Instead, poetry was a largely underpaid profession, and the
professionalization of poetry meant that poets were now reliant on the
rapidly growing and economically powerful publishing industry, rather
than courtly patronage. Likewise, the Victorian audience for poetry had
changed dramatically since the sixteenth century, specifically because of the
changes in educational policy, as well as transformations in the class
structure that offered the middle classes and even some members of the
working class new opportunities for literacy. In fact, this shift in literacy
rates was also linked to the Evangelical emphasis on the individual's ability
to read Scripture for himself or herself, rather than relying on an educated
clergy. Since literacy was no longer only available to an Anglican courtly
society, poets and readers were more likely to come from a variety of
religious perspectives and alliances, ones that authors and publishers
sought to address.
While Anglican social and educational privileges in nineteenth-century
England still ensured that a great number of publishing poets had an
Anglican religious outlook, many of the non-Anglican religious institutions
and communities published their own journals and thus supported their
own writers. Religious periodicals started in this period included the
following: the Jewish Chronicle (1841); the Unitarian Christian Teacher
(1845), succeeded by the National Review (1855); the Quaker Friend
(1843) and Friends' Quarterly Examiner (1867); the Roman Catholic
Dublin Review (1836), Month (1864), and Rambler (1848; succeeded by
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