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.
[2] Jonathan Swift first used the phrase in his mock-heroic prose satire, "The Battle of the Books" (1704), a defense of Classical learning, which he published as a prolegomenon to his A Tale of a Tub.
Swift has the books come to life and step down from the library shelves to stage a mock-Homeric battle, while the goddess Criticism, a hideous hag, intervenes on the side of her beloved "Moderns" in the manner of the Olympians of yore.
Bees range far and wide to search out the very best flowers, which they do not harm, while the spider only moves four inches and feeds on insects and other "vermin of the age.” [6] Aesop judges the argument.
Later writers, notably Matthew Arnold used the phrase "sweetness and light", to designate the positive effects of a (predominantly classical) humanistic culture in arts and letters (without Swift's emphasis on originality versus imitation).
Arnold contends that the most valuable aspect of civilization is its ability to confer "sweetness and light," and he contrasts this to the moralism, hatred, and fanaticism of some of the would-be educators and materialistic improvers of mankind.
For Arnold, sweetness is beauty, and light is intelligence – and together they make up "the essential character of human perfection," which had its fullest development, he believed, among the ancient Greeks.