society verse

noun

1. light, graceful, entertaining poetry considered as appealing to polite society.

Word History and Origins

Origin of society verse¹

Translation of French vers de société

Example Sentences

He is of all composers of society verse and prose the lightest and the swiftest, and we may say to those who sneer at so unique a talent what Madame de S�vign� said of them in her day: "Tant pis pour ceux qui ne l'entendent pas!"

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However we may admire The Haunch of Venison and other stray pieces, Goldsmith was really not a writer of what is now called "Society verse."

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Vers de Société Vers de société, “society verse,” is a development of the last century; almost, one might say, of the last twenty-five years.

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To write “society verse” is to be the laureate of the cultured, leisured, pleasure-loving upper classes; but some poets satisfy the above requirements—Locker himself included—yet certainly do not write exclusively of or for “Society.”

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Why “smoothly written verse, where a boudoir decorum is or ought always to be preserved: where sentiment never surges into passion, and where humour never overflows into boisterous merriment” should be conventionally called “society verse,” or “occasional verse,” is not very clear. 

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