Thank you, for the qualification and good to see your own serious reading list (as well as your longing for the wisdom of humor). In my view, it does not detract from a serious work's gravitas, but only adds to it, if used intelligently.
Regarding, Nietzsche, as a German satirist once quipped: “Tell me what you need, and I’ll supply you with the right Nietzsche quotation.” And, in fact, with his ability to lend himself to innumerable interpretations, Nietzsche especially has been claimed by almost everyone: Anarchists, Atheists, Christians, Fascists, Liberals, Postmodernists, Deconstructionists, Existentialists, Rationalists, Irrationalists, Positivists and Nihilists.
Undoubtedly, we do not find Wilde or Nietzsche as outrageous as they were to their 19th
century sensibility. Rather, in our age, skeptical of absolutes and susceptible to pluralism of interpretations, we consider them contemporaries, or modern diagnosticians whose experiments with values mirror our own. Even in their contradictory works we recognize, writ large, the remarkable and complex workings of the human psyche.
Be well, brother, and wishing you more happy literary discoveries, as you deepen your knowledge of the classics.