• The major philosophy was that of utilitarianism, with such proponents as James Mill and Jeremy Bentham.  The School of Utilitarianism divided the useful from the beautiful, advocating the greatest good for the greatest number; a great many Victorian writers thought literature should be useful.  All the Victorian philosophers had similar educational backgrounds: Greek & Latin classics, humanities, writing imitations of the classic forms.  There was a big difference in what was useful and what was beautiful in literature.  The School of Utilitarianism looked at the past, then looked at the present and decided that anything not useful was worthless; they suffered emotional repression; they contrasted the primitive with the civilized and argued for the civilized.

• The Victorian era saw the western world move from an agricultural rural lifestyle to an industrial urban lifestyle.  The printed page became the most important cultural medium in the world.  Reading was both a mode of instruction and a means of entertainment.  Poetry, however, was often regarded as a rather suspect frivolous form (Tennyson tried to turn poetry into an art form).  A good deal of Victorian literature attempts to regain a lost Eden.

• One common bond among Victorian writers was the preservation of the privacy of their private lives (by adopting pseudonyms, masking, and role-playing).  The 1890s saw an attempt at breaking down or merging artistic genres; Victorians loved paintings which told stories.

• The ability to read Middle English and Old English had died out in the Victorian era and people like Tennyson founded societies to study this literature.  There was a great deal of interest in things medieval, in travel, and in archaeology.

• The Victorians knew how to jerk tears and they loved it.  Audiences preferred melodrama to good straight drama.

• Many Victorians were noveau riche—they came from humble origins but amassed great wealth, not always legitimately.  Education reforms, voting reforms, and prison reforms took place during this era.

• Multiplicity and extreme variety of style and belief are the principal characteristics of the period.  The theme of alienation assumed prominence perhaps because of the bestowing on the poet of the role of prophet, paying excessive tribute to his power for social good, which led to the problem of communication, the split between the poet and his audience.  Utilitarian philosophy tended either to ignore poetry altogether or to deplore it as a species of fiction that impeded rational perception.

• Another significant reflection of the status of the Victorian poet is the tension that every major poet expresses between devotion to individual sensibility and commitment to the social and moral needs of the age, the autonomy of poetry vs. public duty.