The previous thoughts were quite effective.  The presence of the Age of Reason, the Industrial Revolution, and a social reality that determined that scientific growth as well as cosmopolitan notions of the good helped to define individual progress and happiness allowed the Romantic era to emerge.  These thinkers posited that there can be contentment in the life devoted to reflection, individual pursuit of the good, and a reverence of nature and emotional responses to consciousness.  In many ways, the Romantic era was one of the last to present a cohesive intellectual fabric that did not involve the integration of crisis and disunity into its own framework.  Both the Neoclassical and Romantic notions of the good were put to the test in the late 19th century as the emergence of wealth and its trappings, such as material conflict and war, helped to bring about Modernism and, in the 20th century, Post- Modernism.

The neoclassical period directly influenced Romanticism, and Romanticism directly influenced Victorianism.

Romanticism was a reaction against the neoclassical.  Romantic writers rejected the emphasis on reason and on the big picture concerning society and government.  Swift, a neoclassical writer, for instance, uses satire to ridicule the English government, as well as the English and Irish wealthy in his essay, "A Modest Proposal."  His satire is largely based on reason, as well as wit and humor.  Blake, a forerunner of Romanticism, uses a single chimney sweeper to expose the plight of the poor in "The Chimney Sweeper." 

Romanticism emphasizes the individual and the transcendent and nature and that which is beyond human reason, as opposed to the neoclassical.

The early Victorian period is very much romantic in nature.  Early poems by Tennyson, for instance, contain much that is romantic.  Romanticism's influence is direct.  Eventually, Victorian writers and thinkers would reject the optimism of Romanticism, and realism and then naturalism would become predominant.  Later Victorian writers sought to present works of art that more directly reflected reality.