irony

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Noun

irony (usually uncountable; plural ironies)

1. A statement that, when taken in context, may actually mean something different from, or the opposite of what is written literally; the use of words expressing something other than their literal intention, notably as a form of humor.
2. (colloquial) The quality or state of an event being both coincidental and contradictory in a humorous or poignant and extremely improbable way.
3. Dramatic irony: a theatrical effect in which the meaning of a situation, or some incongruity in the plot, is understood by the audience, but not by the characters in the play.
4. Ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist; Socratic irony.

Derived terms

terms derived from irony

• dramatic irony
• irony mark
• ironic

• ironical
• ironist
• Socratic irony

Related terms

• ironically

Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning dissimulation or feigned ignorance) is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is an incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident meaning of words or actions.

Verbal and situational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. The ironic form of simile, irony used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth — or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection.

In fictional dramatic irony, the author causes a character (acting as the author's mouthpiece) to speak or act in a way contrary to the truth. This technique highlights the literal facts by portraying a fictional person who is strikingly ignorant of them.

In certain kinds of situational or historical irony, a factual truth is highlighted by some person's complete ignorance of it or his belief in the opposite of it. However, this state of affairs does not occur by human design. In some religious contexts, such situations have been seen as the deliberate work of Divine Providence to emphasize facts and to taunt humans for not being aware of them — when they could easily have been enlightened (this is similar to human use of irony). Such ironies are often more evident, or more striking, when viewed retrospectively in the light of later developments which make the truth of past situations obvious to all.

Much irony involves commentary that heightens tension in the life situation of someone who needs to learn an easily known fact but somehow fails to learn it.

Irony

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Quotes on the subject of irony.

Sourced

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. ~ George Carlin The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker... He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement. ~ Robertson Davies Irony is the birth-pangs of the objective mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between existence and the idea of existence). ~ Søren Kierkegaard God is an iron… and that's a hot one. ~ Spider Robinson If parody alone can adequately render the reality of our times, only irony offers us the freedom and detachment that are the essential condition of responsible analysis and action. ~ Theodore Ziolkowski

• 'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
  • George Gordon, Lord Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers : A Satire (1809)

• Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony.
  • James Branch Cabell

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Fri Sep 3 23:40:22 2010