Using theology to teach English literature

I found high school English very interesting because of the range of books we studied and the ideas and ways of appreciating them. However, looking back, I think I did not appreciate the background and philosophy of the authors. What made Byron different to Keats or Shakespeare or T.S Eliot? What made Dickens different to Hardy or Thackeray?

We studied the form of each book or poem and what motivated each character and how they related to each other. But there was some context missing. Possibly the philosphical or theological motivation could supply this. Authors are to some extent creatures of their period (or some authors change their period), so it is interesting to relate humanists to Byron, the spirit of nature to Wordsworth, Christianity to T.S Eliot etc. I think I would have found this a fruitful way of studying English literature.