Nonsense delights us I think because it offers us language in mutation, in gestation — how much richer English is for “brillig” and “snark!” — and because it ridicules pompous, vain, and obsessive behavior.
“What hast thou, O my soul, with paradise?
Will we not rather, when our freedom’s won,
Get us to some clear place wherein the sun
Lets drift in on us through the olive leaves
A liquid glory?”