Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Humorous VerseCritical Introduction by Charles L. Graves
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But a great deal of the best light or humorous poetry written in the last half of the nineteenth century stands outside Locker’s definition of occasional verse. Praed’s influence was very considerable. He had many imitators, and to this day there are very few writers of light verse who at one time or another have not made him their model. It has, however, been almost always a mere passing phase of discipleship. Locker himself was almost the last of his successful followers. Vers de société have been dethroned from the exalted position they once held in the domain of light verse, and parody has long been raised from crude verbal mimicry to a high art and an instrument of literary criticism. The successors of Canning, the Smiths, and Bon Gaultier have maintained and improved on the high level of achievement reached in this branch, and it is impossible to render justice to modern humorous verse without taking parody into special account. Indeed, the work of the best living parodists goes a long way to justify the contention of one of their number—that the finest parody is based not on derision but on admiration, on the principle that “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” But the borders of this domain were enlarged in other ways. Scholarship was allied to high spirits and irresponsibility, and the charm of exhilarating nonsense appealed to readers of all ages.
Apart from the contributions of light-hearted scholars, artistic parodists, and writers of romantic nonsense, there remains the sphere of comic topical verse, burlesque, and extravaganza. Here, too, it may be fairly contended that in the period under review the example of Barham and Hook has been bettered by their followers, certainly in respect of technique. Hood in his own line remains unsurpassed: we can point to no sustained humorous or satirical narrative equal to Miss Kilmansegg. But in W. S. Gilbert we had a writer who achieved for burlesque what Calverley did for parody, who had a wider appeal than any other composer of light verse in his day, and who by his wit and technical dexterity raised the literary quality of the libretti of comic opera to a level never reached before.