Guide to Literary Terms | Irony

Irony - a dryly humorous or lightly sarcastic figure of speech in which the literal meaning of a word or statement is the opposite of that intended. In literature, it is the technique of indicating an intention or attitude opposed to what is actually stated. Often, only the context of the statement leads the reader to understand it is ironic. Irony makes use of hyperbole, sarcasm, satire, and understatement. There are four types of irony:

1. verbal irony as defined by Cicero (see below)
2. situational irony, such as when a pickpocket gets his own pockets picked
3. dramatic irony, such as when Oedipus unwittingly kills his own father
4. rhetorical irony, such as that of the innocent narrator in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

The term is taken directly from the Greek eironeia, meaning “simulated ignorance.”

The term was first recorded in Plato’s Republic in the Fourth Century B.C. Aristotle described it as “a dissembling toward the inner core of truth” while Cicero defined it by saying, “Irony is the saying of one thing and meaning another.” Socratic irony is when one adopts another’s point of view in order to reveal that person’s weaknesses and eventually to ridicule him.

Alexander Pope made use of irony when writing in the Eighteenth Century periodical The Guardian. Under a false name, Pope wrote an ironic review of rival poet Ambrose Phillips, juxtaposing Phillip’s worst work with his own best verse - all the while effusively maintaining the superiority of Phillips.

see: hyperbole, satire