Victorian Period

This past week I have studied several poets from the Victorian period for my English Lit. Class. What I found interesting was this was a period of time where people began to doubt Institutional Christianity. It can be seen in the poem "The Forsaken Merman," by Matthew Arnold. In the poem the protagonist Margaret leaves her life in the sea with merman to return to religion. She has a family with the merman and seems quite happy there but wants she remembers Easter she returns to the shore. She seems that she is afraid that she will lose her soul if she remains with the merman and does to devote herself to religion. These poems and other stories were some of the only media that people had available to them so I'm sure they helped aid in this period of doubt.