LIGHT VERSE AND HIGH SERIOUSNESS.

LIGHT VERSE AND HIGH SERIOUSNESS. I remember Auden saying something to the effect that light verse ought to make up a sizable percentage of an anthology of great poetry. I have not been able to find Auden’s statement on Google, but I did find this article, which says that for Auden, “[N]ursery rhymes, kiddy doggerel and folk verse were the genetic stuff of poetry. ‘Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye’ was pretty nearly “pure poetry”. …. It was the kind of lyricism Auden championed as “light verse” in his anthology The Oxford Book of Light Verse (1938)…. It may be that it was Matthew Arnold that introduced the idea that “high seriousness” was essential for greatness. I found this quote from Arnold, condemning Chaucer (!) for not being serious: “He [Chaucer] lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and therewith an important part of their virtue.” It may be that Matthew Arnold is partly the reason why the Oscar for best movie usually goes to a very serious movie and rarely to a comedy.