Re: BHA: Irony

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> Carrol,
>
> >In 40 years of teaching I never
> >succeeded in finding a satisfactory way to explain irony to students. It
> >seems to be like obscenity in the view of (whichever) supreme court
> >justice.
>
> Why not say irony occurs when someone utters or writes a sentence in a
> context which makes clear that the opposite is believed to be the truth?
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Louis Irwin

Perhaps on some other day I will try to work this out more fully, but for
now let me just suggest a reading of Jonathan Swift's, "Argument against
Abolishing Christianity." There is not, so far as I can see, a single
sentence in that essay in which *either* the "literal" *or* the "opposite"
is "true." (And after 40 years of thinking off and on about this text, I
see that perhaps I distort it by leaving out the first word of the title,
"An.")

Carrol

P.S. Austen's irony works fully if (and perhaps only if) you see that the
driving force of her novels is hatred. In comparison to Mrs. Norris Iago
was just your average pleasant suburban neighbor.


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