Papers on irony
Kinds of Irony: a general theory
Title: Kinds of Irony: a general theory
Publication: H. Colston & R. Gibbs (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought. Cambridge University Press.
Date: December 2023
Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974004.004
Abstract: This chapter offers a “conceptual geography” of the ways irony is expressed and understood through several representations of irony, as seen, for example, in fiction and film. Currie draws the careful distinction between cases where an event is represented as being ironic without the event itself being ironic (e.g., a film scene may be constructed to express irony without the scene itself necessarily being an example of situational irony). Dramatic irony, for example, often succeeds because of our knowing something that the characters do not. But the characters’ lack of knowledge is only a pointer to the irony and is not what actually constitutes the irony. Many so-called instance of verbal irony are “expressive,” but not really “communicative,” because they are expressive of an ironic state of mind without a speaker specifically aiming to communicate irony. Currie’s chapter dives into many of these complexities, which are too often ignored in theoretical discussions and explications of irony. His overarching aim is to raise our awareness about what should be counted as irony and what “should be abandoned as the product of an inflated vocabulary.”
The irony in pictures
Title: The Irony in Pictures
Publication: The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 51, Issue 2, April 2011, Pages 149–167
Date: 01 April 2011
Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayr003
Abstract: Pictures are sometimes said to be ironic. In many cases this is an error—the error of confusing an ironic picture with a picture of an ironic situation. Nevertheless some pictures are ironic, and there are two interestingly different ways for that to be the case. A picture may be ironic in style, in which case its irony is independent of the context in which it is presented; or a picture may be ironic by virtue of its context of presentation. Having sorted this out, we can solve two problems: why do we often make mistakes about the irony in pictures? The answer has something to do with the nature of pictures themselves. Is the irony which is sometimes represented in a picture ever the product of the picture itself? The answer, yes, shows that there is a closer connection than we might otherwise have thought between the irony of representations and the irony represented in representations.
