For the present purposes, our interest in the romantic poets is less for the sake of their own convictions than for ascertaining the nature of their influence on English society. In their critique of modern society the Lake poets, in common with so many nineteenth-century critics, tended to idealize the medieval period. The new industrialism they believed carried with it a dehumanization, a loss of many values that the Middle Ages had honored by preserving the religious heritage of Europe.