On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > > > > In Modern English Usage, Fowler gives a fairly simple definition: > > > > 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. > > > > He goes on to list three main categories of irony: Socratic irony > > (Socrates pretends ignorance to manipulate the dogmatists and to > > amuse his followers), dramatic irony (the point being that > > audience knew the story already), > > This seems to be related the irony that Paarfi mentions in his > treatment of Tazendra--the reader is amused to understand things > that she doesn't and see her differently from the way she sees > herself. In my view nothing Tazendra says is ironic - she speaks and does not understand, but no one hearing her fails to understand. It's conceivable that in fact Tazendra is much smarter (in some sense) than people realize - then it would be ironic that her hearers (say the other Musketeers) think she's dumb, but we know otherwise. However, everybody is in fact aware that she's not that dumb. This is humor, sometimes complex humor, but I don't think it's irony. In fact, I can't at this time identify _anything_ in the Paarfiad that's ironic. (Except perhaps the fact that Adron destroys the empire in attempting to save it - his scenes with Aerich in particular have a powerful ironic character.) I'd hazard a guess that Paarfi eschews this mode as a historian. > At the other end of the intellectual spectrum [*], there's > Richard Rorty Run away! Run away! > The whole thread, and other threads you can find by searching > Google Groups for alt.usage.english irony, may be of interest. Maybe I'll have time to delve into that group again when I finish installing my new, brain-upgraded head on my left shoulder.