# Sweetness and light | | **Sweetness and light** is an English idiom that can be used in common speech, either as statement of personal happy consciousness, or as literal report on another person. Depending upon sense-of-humour, some may use the phrase with mild irony. For example: The two had been fighting for a month, but around others it was all sweetness and light. Esteemed humorous writer P. G. Wodehouse employed the phrase often, sometimes with a slight nod to the phrase's dual-edge. Originally, however, "sweetness and light" had a special use in literary and cultural criticism meaning "pleasing and instructive", which in classical theory was considered to be the aim and justification of poetry. | |-|-| | | wikipedia:: [Sweetness and light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness_and_light) | Today, often used with [[Irony]] and sarcasm Coined by Jonathan Swift. Popularized by [[Matthew Arnold]] in [[Culture and Anarchy]] ## [[Dualism]] Pleasing and instructive Beauty and intelligence [[Aesthetics|Aesthetic]] and [[Rationalism|Rational]]