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Topic: Dramatic irony

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	Critical Concepts: Dramatic Irony
		Dramatic irony is a relationship of contrast between a character's limited understanding of his or her situation in some particular moment of the unfolding action and what the audience, at the same instant, understands the character's situation actually to be.
		For dramatic irony to emerge, some consciousness (in fiction, this will be the audience's) must be simultaneously aware of both perspectives.
		But some of the most famous and powerful uses of dramatic irony are associated with tragedy, where it serves to emphasize how limited human understanding can be even when it is most plausible, and how painful can be the costs of the misunderstandings, in some sense inevitable, that result.
	www.k-state.edu /english/baker/english320/cc-dramatic_irony.htm (986 words)

	Essay Title
		A highly established illustration of dramatic irony may be found in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus, where the character of Oedipus investigates the murder of the previous king of Thebes, only to learn that it is himself who is guilty of committing the crime, a truth known to the audience all along.
		Dramatic irony is also seen as Oedipus essentially places a curse on himself as he "call[s] down the most vile damnation- for this vicious act" and thus condemns himself to wear the "brand of shame.
		Dramatic irony is again produced as Oedipus announces that he "will avenge [Lauis] as [he] would avenge [his] own father" (line 248) because Laius is Oedipus' own father.
	dcr.csusb.edu /honors/01/arthurtonb.htm (1304 words)

	The UVic Writer's Guide: Irony
		Dramatic Irony is a situation in which the reader or audience knows more about the immediate circumstances or future events of a story than a character within it; thus the audience is able to see a discrepancy between characters' perceptions and the reality they face.
		Dramatic irony can produce comic effects when the ignorance of characters merely makes them appear ridiculous, or when the unintended results of their actions are humorous.
		Structural irony occurs when a double level of meaning is continued throughout a work by means of some inherent feature such as a hero, narrator, or persona who is either naive or fallible (a participant in the story whose judgment is impaired by prejudice, personal interests or limited knowledge).
	web.uvic.ca /wguide/Pages/LTIrony.html (498 words)

	Irony - StoneHome
		Irony is the use of words in a way to conceal true intention with literal intention.
		Irony is believed to have been imported to English from the Latin ironia in 1502, in turn from the Greek eironeia, a conjugation of eiron - to dissemble, such as lying by omission or by concealment of true intent.
		Irony has nothing to do with something coming back to haunt one; it's about doubletalk, two-faced speech and the sly underpinnings of sarcasm and trickery through misphrased honesty.
	sc.tri-bit.com /Irony (1233 words)

	How To Recognize Irony - Sarcasm Society
		Quite often sarcasm is mistaken for irony; however, sarcasm is a form of irony which uses sharp wit to highlight the obviousness, stupidity, or annoyance-factor of a situation.
		Dramatic Irony: Dramatic irony is the result of the contrast between the understanding of a situation by the dramatic character and the audience.
		With that in mind, please study the definition of the word ‘irony' as provided in the Webster dictionary, before moving on to the main portion of the tutorial.
	www.sarcasmsociety.com /howtorecognizeirony (409 words)

	Dramatic Irony in Sophocles' "Oedipus the King"
		Of course, dramatic irony as such is not necessarily tragic.
		Dramatic irony is confined to the first 3 scenes, because it is Scene IV that Oedipus learns the full truth about his situation, and in the Exodos he expresses the various aspects of the misery into which this discovery plunges him.]
		The point here is to try to appreciate what might be the particular effects Sophocles seems to be concerned to use dramatic irony to evoke in this particular work, and what might be the thematic ends these in turn could be serving.
	www.k-state.edu /english/baker/english251/sg-Sophocles-OR-dramatic_irony.htm (679 words)

	AUSTEN
		As Darcy and Elizabeth's relationship oscillates, due to the inbuilt eponymous vices of pride and prejudice, the reader perceives further irony in being unsure in which direction the ironic structure is directed.
		Dramatic irony consists of a situation whereby the reader participates with the author in a knowledge of events which have not been disclosed to the character.
		Austen augments this form of irony by concealing facts from the reader, thereby building up a false anticipation which is abruptly thwarted for the sake of dramatic interest.
	www.english-literature-essays.com /austen.htm (1531 words)

	irony - Definitions from Dictionary.com
		The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs.
		In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement; one thing is said and its opposite implied, as in the comment, “Beautiful weather, isn't it?” made when it is raining or nasty.
		Jonathan Swift uses irony in “A Modest Proposal” when he suggests the eating of babies as a solution to overpopulation and starvation in Ireland.
	dictionary.reference.com /search?q=irony (693 words)

	Glossary of Poetic Terms from BOB'S BYWAY, Letter I
		Irony of fate is when a situation occurs which is quite the reverse of what one might have expected, as in Shelley's "Ozymandias."
		Sidelight: The use of irony can be very effective, providing it is reasonably obvious and not likely to be taken so literally that the reader is left with the opposite of what was meant to convey.
		It should also be noted that irony, of itself, is not bitter or cruel, but may become so when used as a vehicle for satire or sarcasm.
	www.poeticbyway.com /gl-i.html (841 words)

	Teaching Tips for Those Moments When We Can Use a Little Extra Help With Our Lessons
		Verbal irony occurs when an author or character says one thing but means something else.
		Situational irony is an inconsistency between what the audience or reader expects, and what actually happens.
		Dramatic irony occurs when an audience or reader knows something that a character does not know.
	www.4secondarysolutions.com /teaching_tips.htm (588 words)

	Dramatic irony - The TV IV
		Dramatic irony is a term borrowed from literary and dramatic criticism.
		It refers to a situation in which the audience is shown or made aware of an important fact, detail or story element of which one or more characters are unaware.
		Viewers would be shown a homicide in the first act, and would therefore know both the killer and his or her motive, but it would be up to the detective, Lt.
	tviv.org /Dramatic_irony (131 words)

	Irony at AllExperts
		Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that "more" and of the outsider's incomprehension.
		The word "irony" is frequently used figuratively, especially in such phrases as "the irony of fate," of an issue or result that seems to contradict normal expectations derived from the previous state or condition.
		The expression "irony of fate" stems from the notion that the gods (or the Fates) are amusing themselves by toying with the minds of mortals, with deliberate ironic intent.
	en.allexperts.com /e/i/ir/irony.htm (3207 words)

	Plautus - Dark Humor and Dramatic Irony
		This self-awareness, which can take the form of metadrama, dramatic irony, or any other device by which the dramatic illusion is broken, seems with Aristophanes to be merely a comic trope, used to praise the comedy itself, whereas by Plautus it has become an accepted and plot-dependent 'humorous' escape from the reality of the play.
		At the same time, the effect of Plautus' dramatic irony works directly on the tone of the plays: while Aristophanic characters are relatively open with their aside remarks, Plautine figures speak with psychological overtones, enriching the deeper, darker comedy of these works.
		As noted, the dramatic irony of Plautus in the aside remarks also differs from the Aristophanic version in that the remarks are usually addressed, not to the audience, but to the other characters within the drama, or, quite frequently, to no-one in particular at all.
	www.nthuleen.com /papers/C14paper2.html (1912 words)

	irony. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05
		Perhaps the simplest form of irony is rhetorical irony, when, for effect, a speaker says the direct opposite of what she means.
		Dramatic irony occurs in a play when the audience knows facts of which the characters in the play are ignorant.
		The most sustained example of dramatic irony is undoubtedly Sophocles’; Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus searches to find the murderer of the former king of Thebes, only to discover that it is himself, a fact the audience has known all along.
	www.bartleby.com /65/ir/irony.html (203 words)

	Definitions of Irony by Jennifer Thompson
		He writes, "[A]bsolute irony is a consciousness of madness, itself the end of all consciousness; it is a consciousness of a non-consciousness, a reflection on madness from the inside of madness itself" (216).
		Instability is one of the hallmarks of irony.
		Either his nine varieties of irony make no sense and irony eludes his tidy critical categories, or he's pulling a prank, and he knows that irony eludes tidy critical categories, and his elaborate taxonomy is intended to demonstrate just that (only to folks in the know, of course).
	www.ajdrake.com /e456_spr_03/materials/guides/gd_irony_def.htm (3649 words)

	Dramatic Irony
		The coincidence that gives rise to irony it necessarily missing in literature, it would be absurd for us to assume that the words on the page are anything but what they were intended to be.
		But irony is still forceful in the world or literature because of the skill of author's in making coherence - in making irony appear in the world of their characters in the same way that it appears in the world of humans.
		Chaucer is a deft enough master of irony; he puts it to good use in his prologues - but in the tales themselves the format takes the edge off his skill.
	users.eastlink.ca /~micah/dramaticirony.html (1256 words)

	A Study of Irony in Christy
		Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something about a situation of which a character is ignorant that makes their actions/words inappropriate to the actual circumstances.
		Situational irony is when there is a discrepancy between the expected results and the actual results, or simply put the difference in what we think will occur in a situation and what actually does occur.
		Another use of dramatic irony is in The Road Home when we know Margaret MacNeill is at the cabin trying to convince her husband to take her back and meanwhile Christy has just discovered she is in love with MacNeill and hurries to his cabin at the same moment to see him.
	www.neilandchristy.com /irony.html (1178 words)

	Essay: Dramatic irony in Oedipus. - Coursework.Info
		Marks October 9th, 2003 SKELETON ESSAY: DRAMATIC IRONY IN OEDIPUS Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher claimed that a good tragic play must arouse pity from the audience, adding that the best way to accomplish this was through the usage of dramatic irony.
		Dramatic irony is delivered in a way that allows the audience to be exposed deeper into the play.
		In Oedipus the King, dramatic irony is used effectively to demonstrate and emphasize a character's disloyalty, ignorance, and blindness.
	www.coursework.info /A2_and_A-Level/Classics/Dramatic_irony_in_Oedipus_L39270.html (254 words)

	IRONY (Site not responding. Last check: )
		STRUCTURAL IRONY or DRAMATIC IRONY: involves the use of a naïve, unknowing, or deluded hero or an unreliable narrator whose view of the world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author and readers.
		Irony can be traced through all periods of literature, from classical Greek and Roman epics and dramas to the good-humored and subtle irony of Chaucer to the 20th- century writer’s method for dealing with nihilism and despair, as in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
		Sophocles’; use of dramatic irony also has a high seriousness, as in Oedipus the King, where Oedipus prays for the discovery and punishment of the city’s polluter, little knowing that it is himself.
	www.calvertonschool.org /waldspurger/pages/irony.htm (334 words)

	Ralph Dumain: "The Autodidact Project": "Irony" by Norman D. Knox
		Also, two aspects of irony were implied by this definition: "to blame by praise" is satiric irony; "to praise by blame is comic irony, for undesirable characteristics attributed to a sympathetic victim draw the audience’s attention to his real virtues.
		Apart from Socrates, the rhetoricians thought of irony, in Quintilian’s terms, as either "trope," a brief figure of speech embedded in a straightforward context, or "schema," an entire speech or case presented in language and a tone of voice that conflict with the true situation.
		The comic irony of praise through blame, which had also originated in Socratic self-depreciation, remained a minor figure of speech until the early eighteenth century, when in England, at least, Swift, Pope, and their friends recognized it as a delightful mode in which to write letters and converse.
	www.autodidactproject.org /other/ironydhi.html (4832 words)

	irony - Information from Reference.com
		Irony invites the reader to consider several shades of meaning simultaneously, some of which are elided or cancelled out in the process.
		It was suggested by Kierkegaard that the finest irony is undecipherable as such - which comes close to the position of the Romantic ironist, who writes with a keen sense of the double-sidedness of truth and the irreducible ambiguity of language itself.
		The most sustained example of dramatic irony is undoubtedly Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus searches to find the murderer of the former king of Thebes, only to discover that it is himself, a fact the audience has known all along.
	www.reference.com /browse/all/irony (831 words)

	Wordsmith.org: Wordsmith Talk: Dramatic Irony/99 To Go (Site not responding. Last check: )
		dramatic irony: The dramatic effect achieved by leading an audience to understand an incongruity between a situation and the accompanying speeches, while the characters in the play remain unaware of the incongruity.
		Dramatic irony causes that kind of restless feeling in which we want to intrude into the scene and tell the character (if it's a sympathetic one) what's going on.
		I think situational irony and dramatic irony will be fairly easy concepts for my students to grasp once they've collected enough distinct examples of the two.
	wordsmith.org /board/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=113279&an=0&page=4 (1814 words)

	Aristophanes, Plautus, and Goethe: Irony and Social Criticism
		One of the theatrical conventions which all three playwrights share is the concept of theatrical self-consciousness, which undergoes a progression in importance and in centrality to the dramatic events from the Aristophanic to the Goethean treatment.
		Goethe, however, brings in a merging of these two uses of metadrama: the dramatic self-consciousness in Faust is for the most part plot-dependent, yet it is not truly central to the action, at least not in the same way as in Plautine comedies.
		Goethe, though, ever the innovator, brings new elements to his use of dramatic irony in Faust: not only are his continual references to classical antiquity and to the Greek ideals a plot-dependent trope, but the implied comparison between Faust and typical Greek drama also serves to authenticate Goethe's own work.
	www.nthuleen.com /papers/177paper.html (3110 words)

	Irony in the Medieval Romance - Cambridge University Press (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Despite the fashionable standing of irony in studies of modern literature and its occasional application to medieval studies in a number of recent works, no sustained analysis of this phenomenon has yet been attempted for medieval literature.
		From this he moves on to discuss the major themes to which irony may be applied (chivalry and love), as well as the ways in which the narrative is organised so as to bring out any ironic implications of these themes.
		Subsequent chapters are concerned with the various types of irony to be distinguished: verbal irony, irony of the narrator, dramatic irony, the irony of values, and structural irony.
	www.cambridge.org /0521224586 (253 words)

	triron.html
		Irony in speaking is a matter of saying one thing and meaning something else.
		Irony in this sense can be either deliberate and intentional (Socrates) or unintentional (the speaker does not know that he or she is being ironic).
		The phenomenon of unintentional irony, as in "as if he were my father," is in Greek tragedy the product of a situation of which the protagonist is both unaware and also innocent, in the sense that he or she is not (at least not entirely) responsible for it.
	www.rci.rutgers.edu /~edmunds/triron.html (341 words)

	Alanis Morrissette and Misconceptions...
		In other words, the word "irony" should be reserved for use in describing ironic situations, not sarcastic ones, and vice-versa.
		Said lesson plan describes irony as "the contrasts between reality and people's perceptions" and "between the way people view themselves and how they are seen by others." Life is subjective; it's true.
		Essentially, most good definitions note the key aspect to irony: incongruity between what might normally be expected and what actually occurred or what actually is. Without such incongruity, the situation is not ironic.
	home.mchsi.com /~djdowns9/ironic.html (1392 words)

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