One of the most interesting aspects of Victorian era literature reflects the conflict between religion and the rapid gathering movement aptly dubbed the Enlightenment. Primarily known for its prudish and repressed social and family structure, beneath the surface of Victorian illusion many contradictory, perhaps even radical, ideas simmered and quickly reached a boiling point in the public circle. In fact, writers such as Thomas Hardy and Gerald Manly Hopkins reflect this same struggle between the cold front of ancient human understanding and the rising warm front known only as enlightenment. As a result, we, the readers, are treated to a spectacular fireworks display in the poetry of both authors as the two ideas: the poetics of the soul and the savior, and the poetics of naturalistic struggle and brutality, meet and mix in the minds of the authors, creating a storm for us to enjoy. Let us begin by describing the lives of the two men. Bourn just four years apart, Hardy in 1840 and Hopkins in 1844, both men flourished at the height of Victorian culture in England. Not only were both men born in the same decade, but they also had similar backgrounds in literature. Hopkins studied the classics at Oxford, and Hardy, through strictly regulated self-study, became intimately familiar with similar classics such as the Odyssey. Hopkins converted to Catholicism in 1866, to the disdain of his parents. For Hopkins, religion would remain a point of contention for the rest of his life, leading him to burn much of his poetry with the idea that the sermon was the only one worthy of literary discourse. Despite Hopkins' early warnings to write, he would continue to do so, often to express his religious and personal struggles... middle of paper ... ideas of pilgrimage and happiness two words with obvious religion. nuances. Unlike Hardwig, Hardy embodies the poetics of the Enlightenment, that is, the poetics of naturalism, struggle and brutality, and therefore we see reflected in his poems a laughing irony of the ideas of destiny, embodying thus the growing pressures of Enlightenment thought. Unlike Hardwig's poem, Hardyd's lacks any type of respect or fear for the suffering he endures. In fact, he mocks both the idea that suffering is something divine and the idea that a man can do anything to affect the amount of suffering he experiences throughout his life. . In a sense the two authors, while expressing similar ideas, the idea of ​​personal struggle and suffering, are in conflict in a way very similar to that of religion and the Enlightenment in the Victorian era..